Urban has gone gender inclusive

[crfriend]

The point here is not what it costs per mea/giga/tera - byte of space, but rather the societal perspective of what's acceptable. Right now, from that perspective, guys wearing skirts are not accepted, and hence there will be no "pull" (read, "market") for men's skirts. Full stop. The binary coding is very well established in both sexes and this is not going to go away any time soon (if ever). Thus, until the ground moves beneath our feet we're going to be waiting in vain.

Sally forth and just wear what you want to wear no matter which side of the store it came from.

[mr seamstress]

The point here is not what it costs per mea/giga/tera - byte of space, but rather the societal perspective of what's acceptable. Right now, from that perspective, guys wearing skirts are not accepted, and hence there will be no "pull" (read, "market") for men's skirts. Full stop. The binary coding is very well established in both sexes and [i\is not going to go away[/i] any time soon (if ever). Thus, until the ground moves beneath our feet we're going to be waiting in vain.

It's about making retailers more efficient and making this efficiency more profitable toward their bottom line and selling it to the public. Currently average retailer isn't running their most efficient manner. They are wasting money on labor, because of conservative groups and their hate they have toward other group of people. Having just one category in the computer system would help in streamline their business and make finding the product faster you want. Why pay for a Tech to program a computer and log same product multi times in different categories? More categories the more pages the Tech has to debug, design, and update. It's like seeing a stockperson unloading a pallet and turn around put everything back on pallet and again unload the same pallet putting everything on self again. to med this is total waste of time. When you get tired of paying higher prices because the retailer refuses to streamline their process to more efficiently please send them a note they are idiot for not streamlining and not making their wallet thicker from profits, but also making your wallet thinner. Illegal tariffs isn't the only thing that hurts our wallet.

[Mouse]

.............Having just one category in the computer system would help in streamline their business and make finding the product faster you want. Why pay for a Tech to program a computer and log same product multi times in different categories? More categories the more pages the Tech has to debug, design, and update......

Computer systems do not work this way. There will be one record of the skirt with all the pictures, information, price the lot. This will then be in a data base, with many search paths through to this one record.

So take a long red skirt, size 14, made out of silk, priced £30. This one data based record will be accessed by a number of searches.

Possible searches that will bring up this one skirt record.
Style - Skirt
Type of garment - Bottom
Colour - Red
Gender - Female
Gender - Everyone
Size - 14
Material - Silk
Colour - Not Black
Price - Below £50
Price - Above £20
Material - Not Denim
Length - Longer than Mini
Length - Long

So adding further genders is just a database coding change, which you can probably get AI to write for you.

Making the actual skirt record gender neutral is more work, since you need to use two models in the photo shoot or tell AI to generate pics of the skirt being worn by a man and a woman.

The more ways you can get customers to consider this one skirt the better, which is why some searches bring back things that do not totally fit your search. How many times do you ask a site to show you what skirts they have, only to find some shorts in the mix of returned answers?

[steamman]

The point here is not what it costs per mea/giga/tera - byte of space, but rather the societal perspective of what's acceptable. Right now, from that perspective, guys wearing skirts are not accepted, and hence there will be no "pull" (read, "market") for men's skirts. Full stop. The binary coding is very well established in both sexes and [i\is not going to go away[/i] any time soon (if ever). Thus, until the ground moves beneath our feet we're going to be waiting in vain.

It's about making retailers more efficient and making this efficiency more profitable toward their bottom line and selling it to the public. Currently average retailer isn't running their most efficient manner. They are wasting money on labor, because of conservative groups and their hate they have toward other group of people. Having just one category in the computer system would help in streamline their business and make finding the product faster you want. Why pay for a Tech to program a computer and log same product multi times in different categories? More categories the more pages the Tech has to debug, design, and update. It's like seeing a stockperson unloading a pallet and turn around put everything back on pallet and again unload the same pallet putting everything on self again. to med this is total waste of time. When you get tired of paying higher prices because the retailer refuses to streamline their process to more efficiently please send them a note they are idiot for not streamlining and not making their wallet thicker from profits, but also making your wallet thinner. Illegal tariffs isn't the only thing that hurts our wallet.

Exactly, it’s about efficiency, and efficiency always wins. The current gendered system of clothing makes no economic sense. Separate sizing, separate buying teams, separate marketing. It all amounts to duplication. And for what exactly? This idea that you cut off half of your potential customers before they even touch a hanger is nonsensical, and based on 1950s social attitudes. The truth is that with AI try on, AI driven body measurement systems, the current proxy of the gender binary is on a severely borrowed time. High return rates illustrate that it doesn’t work. Combined with changing social attitudes from Gen Z and Alpha, I firmly believe change is coming quickly. Fashion is next for the “Spotify” moment as younger customers want frictionless shopping and inclusion.

[STEVIE]

High return rates illustrate that it doesn’t work. Combined with changing social attitudes from Gen Z and Alpha, I firmly believe change is coming quickly.

High return rates are largely due to fickle purchasing not gender binary and sizing.
ASOS, "As Seen On Screen", except it looks very different up close and personal.
Change coming quickly, maybe, let us hope that it is in the way you mean.
May not seem like it, but I'd like to be proven wrong.
Steve.

[steamman]

I disagree with you on the cause of high return rates. The central problem is that fashion still predominantly works on grossly simplified approximations of body shapes, assuming 1 for men and 1 for women (hourglass) dating back to the 1950s: The reality today is very different: there are about 6-10 different body shapes and these are not gender specific.

If they were gender specific, why is that a standard sized “woman’s dress” fits me perfectly? I can walk into practically any high street shop, pick up a UK size 16 and they usually fit 9 times out of 10. Clothes fit bodies, not genders and the fashion industry is finally realising this. And high return rates is the biggest problem in fashion. The industry has for decades made fit the problem for the customer. Brands who actually deal with this properly will win big. Skirts and dresses will become more accessible to men not because of social justice, but cold hard economics.

[mr seamstress]

Computer systems do not work this way. There will be one record of the skirt with all the pictures, information, price the lot. This will then be in a data base, with many search paths through to this one record.

So take a long red skirt, size 14, made out of silk, priced £30. This one data based record will be accessed by a number of searches.

Possible searches that will bring up this one skirt record.

So adding further genders is just a database coding change, which you can probably get AI to write for you.

Making the actual skirt record gender neutral is more work, since you need to use two models in the photo shoot or tell AI to generate pics of the skirt being worn by a man and a woman.

The more ways you can get customers to consider this one skirt the better, which is why some searches bring back things that do not totally fit your search. How many times do you ask a site to show you what skirts they have, only to find some shorts in the mix of returned answers?

Not all retailers have just one skirt record, using this for example. They have multi records and this can be seen by which key words that is used in search. Walmart is known bad for this. The description changes because of key words that was used. One description would come back for only woman when using woman's only garment. They have a separate page for unisex search where the same garment have a description indicating that the garment would work for man, just not only woman.
What has been well mention here clothes has no gender, and by that retailer needs only list which outfits that fit infant to being an adult, leaving out gender and this would help in ending the stigma that is face by man who wears dresses and skirts. Keeping gender as part of listings helps in protecting stigma man faces every day.

When a user searches for skirts, then that user wants to see is skirts, not shorts period. I find this being very irritating and wasting time. No one should be force to see 100 pairs of shorts in order the system brings up what you was searching for in the first place. When the system is bringing up everything than want the user ask for is pure garbage. This includes doing a search for skorts and the system produces multi pairs of "sissy" panties, that isn't part of user interest.

[crfriend]

Not all retailers have just one skirt record, using this for example. They have multi records and this can be seen by which key words that is used in search.

No, there's likely one "SKU" (or "stock unit number") per garment with an added component for apparel to account for size. They neither need, nor want, duplicate SKUs depending on "gender" as that could cause duplicate ordering from suppliers which would cost them.

What has been well mention here clothes has no gender, and by that retailer needs only list which outfits that fit infant to being an adult, leaving out gender and this would help in ending the stigma that is face by man who wears dresses and skirts. Keeping gender as part of listings helps in protecting stigma man faces every day.

Pretty soon there's going to be nothing left of this poor dead horse because it will have been beaten into a pulp and washed away. The problem is NOT retailers, the problem is that society (and especially the reactionaries in society) have it hard-wired into the ganglia that pass for brains that skirt equals woman. Full stop. We need to figure out how to attack that mentality before any of this will get any traction whatsoever. It's not a matter of computer programming; it's a matter of societal programming -- and that's a very, very tough nut to crack (especially with the reactionaries).

I've abandoned all hope of ever seeing motion in this regard, especially in the country I live in. It's simply "too far gone" to be capable of being aware of possibilities that lie outside the prescribed boxes -- and right now, skirts are proscribed for men. It just doesn't happen. MEN DO NOT WEAR SKIRTS. That thought process needs to be obliterated before any motion will ever be seen -- and that IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN in my lifetime.

[mr seamstress]

Not all retailers have just one skirt record, using this for example. They have multi records and this can be seen by which key words that is used in search.

No, there's likely one "SKU" (or "stock unit number") per garment with an added component for apparel to account for size. They neither need, nor want, duplicate SKUs depending on "gender" as that could cause duplicate ordering from suppliers which would cost them.

Unfortunately you think all retailers uses same basic format in retail sales, this is false. We have a Walmart store in this small community that is categorize as being a Super Walmart, but it isn't anything near being a Super. We have a group of other business with Walmart. One business is a tobacco store belonging to small chain. They offer sales on different tobacco products. This sale be like buy 5 save $2. This means if you want to walk out of store with a large saving, this deal can only happen by ringing 5 products at a time and pay for those 5 products in each transaction. Try to ring up less than 5 or more than 5 and get -0- savings. This same business has 2 employees working at a time with one cash register with drive up window and in store purchases. This small corporation can't get their act together in making their business more efficient. I'm glad the grocery store located in same area its computer system has a total different when it comes to sales of $2 by buying 5. Can buy at large quantity at a time and getting full savings instead small purchases that increase transaction time and making checking out lot slower. Please come to my community and I introduce you to Judy the store manager and all the girls employees that work there. I teach you how to recognize screw up computer system that is base on poor computer programing. I still stand by the fact Walmart computer system sucks because of poor computer programing and have multi pages for same product whether you agree or not. Finding two different descriptions for one product, means there are two different files. I have my programing skills in basic language.

As long computers are program to separate genders because this how society thinks nothing going to change. Computers are program in reflection of hate to each group. The day a person walking into the store having one isle of pants for adult as example, would help in ending the stigma men face by doing away gender period. We need just children isle, toddler isle, and adult isle. Having a women's isle and men's isle, is full representation how man and woman are not equal.

'i thought I should add this piece of information. In my community Goodwill Industry does lump one type article of clothing together and isn't separated as male and female garments. They have all T=shirts in one single area. This tactic encourage man buy a T-shirt originally sold as woman garment and wear it as man's garment.
Many store today require their employees wear shirts with their company logo and these shirts aren't made for any certain gender.

[steamman]

Not all retailers have just one skirt record, using this for example. They have multi records and this can be seen by which key words that is used in search.

No, there's likely one "SKU" (or "stock unit number") per garment with an added component for apparel to account for size. They neither need, nor want, duplicate SKUs depending on "gender" as that could cause duplicate ordering from suppliers which would cost them.

What has been well mention here clothes has no gender, and by that retailer needs only list which outfits that fit infant to being an adult, leaving out gender and this would help in ending the stigma that is face by man who wears dresses and skirts. Keeping gender as part of listings helps in protecting stigma man faces every day.

Pretty soon there's going to be nothing left of this poor dead horse because it will have been beaten into a pulp and washed away. The problem is NOT retailers, the problem is that society (and especially the reactionaries in society) have it hard-wired into the ganglia that pass for brains that skirt equals woman. Full stop. We need to figure out how to attack that mentality before any of this will get any traction whatsoever. It's not a matter of computer programming; it's a matter of societal programming -- and that's a very, very tough nut to crack (especially with the reactionaries).

I've abandoned all hope of ever seeing motion in this regard, especially in the country I live in. It's simply "too far gone" to be capable of being aware of possibilities that lie outside the prescribed boxes -- and right now, skirts are proscribed for men. It just doesn't happen. MEN DO NOT WEAR SKIRTS. That thought process needs to be obliterated before any motion will ever be seen -- and that IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN in my lifetime.

I find it odd that few people on here seem to recognise that Gen Z and Alpha completely ignore gender norms - they consider them to be irrelevant nonsense. And when they happens? The social programming dies. They happily normalise the idea that anyone can wear anything via TikTok. That’s the real shift. The fashion world is rapidly waking up to this. Other retailers will follow Urban and gender inclusion will improve because clothes are moving from “am I allowed this” to “does this feel right for me”.

I found another interesting article today. It acknowledges there are still problems, but also provides a positive perspective.

https://www.meer.com/en/96104-the-rise- ... ss-fashion

[Jim]

right now, skirts are proscribed for men. It just doesn't happen. MEN DO NOT WEAR SKIRTS. That thought process needs to be obliterated before any motion will ever be seen -- and that IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN in my lifetime.

I am a man. My full beard proclaims I am not hiding nor ashamed of that.

I wear skirts or dresses every day.

Therefore, "MEN DO NOT WEAR SKIRTS" is a false statement. I am helping people understand that daily, obliterating that silly thought in those who view me.

[crfriend]

I am a man. My full beard proclaims I am not hiding nor ashamed of that.

I wear skirts or dresses every day.

You, like most of us at Skirt Cafe are a bit "unusual" in that we are able to question the "common wisdom". This tends to set us apart from most of what passes for "society".

Thus,

Therefore, "MEN DO NOT WEAR SKIRTS" is a false statement.

Not in the view of the average mind to which is it a mantra, and one that the controlling classes (at least in undeveloped areas) push on the populace to "keep them in line".

It's the classic "two sides to every story" -- especially when dealing with sociology.

[STEVIE]

I find it odd that few people on here seem to recognise that Gen Z and Alpha completely ignore gender norms - they consider them to be irrelevant nonsense.

Do they really, all of them regardless of race, creed or colour?
What evidence do you have for that assertion?
Steve.
NB it's a question not an insult!