Kilt Noticed By Colleagues

[iain]

In my case I was talking about the hip-knee length, and NOT waist-knee. the stuff I wear, even the kilts, are all hipsters. I like the style better because I hate having anything binding around my waist.

my hips are about 39.5" and waist about 34": if you buy women's skirts designed to fit at the waist, then if they fit at the hips they'll be way too tight at the waist. and if you buy them to fit at the waist, they'll sag all over the place at the hips. there's no point! the hipster designs are a godsend for guys because they go straight down, more or less. probably a comparable women's waist with a 39.5" hip would be more like 28 - 30". tiny! forget about it!

so in my case, if you take waist to knee measurement it would be more like 25" or so, I guess. I find hipster styles of anything, whether jeans, skirts, kilts, even sarongs, underwear, swimsuits, whatever, are much more comfortable and natural to the body than waist fitting stuff.

[crfriend]

When I speak of a skirt length I refer to the length from the waistband to the hem.

That's the standard measurement.

I wear skirts at my natural waist, which is basically at the navel. Thus waist-to-top-of-kneecap is 24 inches.

I tend to wear mine closer to my hips, about 2 inches (5.02 cm) below my navel (note that we're talking humans here, so "natural variation" is the rule of the day); I'm 6'4" (193 cm) and my "navel-to-top-of-kneecap" is about 21" (it looks like I'm not as "leggy" as I thought).

A skirt 12 inches long would leave critical body parts exposed when standing, and drastically more so when sitting. Any length less than 24 inches means skin-on-chair when sitting.

I'm wearing one of my 17-inchers (43.2 cm) as I write this. I'm certainly not exposing anything -- my wife has assured me that so long as I watch what I do nothing of "any ill repute" shows, and in looking down at the moment where I'm sitting (at a typical dining-room chair) it looks like there's about two inches of "skin-on-chair" -- hardly a lot.

So, looking at it mathematically and not taking natural variation into account, it looks like sub-20-inchers actually work for tall blokes. It also matters where one wears the skirt. Kilts (a specialised/formalised kind of skirt) always hang from the waist; I find that mine (both home-made and store-bought) work better when worn closer to the hips.

The upshot of all this drivel? One can't tell until one tries it on and gets a feel for it. On the plus side, minis are very comfortable when the temperatures get into the 90s (F, mid-40s C). They do require constant attention, though, so as not to inadvertantly expose one's self whilst bending over (a bad habit, anyway, it's almost always better to use one's legs).

The notion of "active management" came out of a very interesting, and informative, conversation I had with a a young woman I know who showed up at my local watering-hole in a mini that didn't seem much longer than a wide belt. Pointing out that it was a strictly technical question, I asked her how she managed such short garments modestly and she pointed out, very succinctly that it's all in how you move when you're wearing them, and that one has to have a heightened awareness of one's movement, at all times when wearing such a garment (I call that "awareness and movement", "management"). Whilst there's no way in Hades that I'd ever have the nerve to wear anything even close to as short as she had on, it was, nonetheless, a pleasant sight to see it on an attractive young woman. (See, I ain't dead yet!)

[crfriend]

I'd love to try wearing shorter skirts. My waistline--mid knee length is about the same as yours. I made an 18" skirt (about 110" hem circumference), and when I wear it, I feel like naked. I worry that the slightest move will expose "what's under".

A hundred and ten inches? That's almost ten linear feet! On a garment that's maybe, taken as a full circle, perhaps 56 to 60 inches in diameter? No wonder you feel naked; if you put that into motion, it'll flare out to almost 90 degrees and show the world your "family jewels".

The home-built minis I have are wrap designs, made from essentially a tube of fabric made wide enough to get around my hips comfortably, and then with an elastic waist that I typically wear about midway between my natural waist and hips. The design doesn't "flare" if I spin, but works along the wrap to ensure that I have enough "give" to accomodate my long stride (in pants terms, a 35" inseam).

I'll post a detailed analysis of the design if anybody is interested. I have made two, and find that the "prototype" works better than the "production" version which was more finely 'tailored". Both are made of, believe it or not, sheer curtain fabric that when folded thrice over becomes visually opaque.

[ChrisM]

Thanks! Your numbers are consistent with mine, if we adjust about 2" for wear-height. (navel vice hip, etc.)

Sounds like I am a bit longer legged, although we are of basically the same stature (6'-3" / 170#)

Thanks again - It's just the engineer in me demanding the we define our measurements and datum.

C

[skirttron]

Thanks for all the lively discussion. He's a great boss really, and being so blunt, he also told me right out who it was who noticed me, and said guy was within earshot. Said guy, however, is the kind of person who thinks chop suey is an exotic meal, though I get on fine with him, too. Yes, the jokes with my boss are two-way too - we interact as equals. The funny thing is, I know our receptionist saw me in a kilt months before and presumably said nothing at all to anyone. Really, I don't mind dressing more conventionally for customers, since what they buy pays my mortgage - I learned long ago to treat the customer as king.
Boss even said my wearing a kilt might liven things up a bit, and it probably would. The comment about the checking up the food chain is important, too, because I don't want to rub the quills of some stovepipe-hat puritan the wrong way.

[Skirt Chaser]

I arrived in the office on Monday to the following question from my good-humoured and very blunt boss: "Do you dress as a woman?".
He explained that a colleague had noticed me out and about el-skirto with a bunch of women (relatives as it happens). I explained it was a kilt, but that a kilt was just a kind of skirt, and I believed that gender equality should mean men can wear what they like in the same way as women, so I was not dressing as a woman. He reacted as any good, modern boss should, by saying I was welcome to wear it to work provided no customers were around at the time. This seems very fair to me, but this is just one reaction and I'm not sure whether to or not. I'm going to mull this over for a while.

The way I read it the boss offered you the sometime option of kilts without that being requested. Even if it is partial permission I'd say the offer itself is a success of sorts. Once he's seen how harmless you look in it there might be more inroads.

Quiet Mouse

[Bravehearts.us]

I arrived in the office on Monday to the following question from my good-humoured and very blunt boss: "Do you dress as a woman?".
He explained that a colleague had noticed me out and about el-skirto with a bunch of women (relatives as it happens). I explained it was a kilt, but that a kilt was just a kind of skirt, and I believed that gender equality should mean men can wear what they like in the same way as women, so I was not dressing as a woman. He reacted as any good, modern boss should, by saying I was welcome to wear it to work provided no customers were around at the time. This seems very fair to me, but this is just one reaction and I'm not sure whether to or not. I'm going to mull this over for a while.

You can dress like a woman. All you need is a pair of pants and a bra that says, "look at these". I wonder how far down the hall you would get if you were wearing a pair of pouch pants that said, "look at these" before you got pulled into the office? Actually, if that happened I would hope I had a female boss. It would be fun to put her under a little, where do I look pressure. LOL
Lar

[Since1982]

I have disagreed with Steve D many times in the past but in this case I agree with him totally. Perhaps Skirttron should wear a comic book "Flash" suit under his skirt so if a customer accidently wanders into his area he can "Flash" to the lockers for a pair of trousers. I too think that the "not in the area where customers are" bit is insulting and discriminatory. In other words the boss might be saying, "I don't care what you wear as long as you stay under your rock out of sight of others".

[Bravehearts.us]

Unfortunately some companies can and do chastise an employee for what they consider portraying the company in an unfavorable light when the employee is off work. My employer frowns on any association with men in skirts and I am the reason they developed a policy against it because I wore a kilt to work.
If I were to wear a skirt with a company T-shirt when I’m off work, it could cost me my job. No, they probably wouldn’t use that as the reason to get rid of me even though they could because they would say it sheds a negative light on the company. They would say that it would give the public a negative or false impression of the company and that it could cost them in revenue. Even if I wasn’t wearing the company T-shirt, just the fact that people would know that I work for that company would be enough for the company to claim the same thing.
I’ve already known of employees who were let go because of extra curricular activities that didn’t fit the company’s mission statement.
Lar

[crfriend]

Unfortunately some companies can and do chastise an employee for what they consider portraying the company in an unfavorable light when the employee is off work. My employer frowns on any association with men in skirts and I am the reason they developed a policy against it because I wore a kilt to work.

Really all this does is shine a very intense light on the incredibly backward state of labour law in the US -- well, it's not so much that it's backward, it's that when it's there in the first place, it's there for the exclusive benefit of the employer and not the employee. It seems that our friends in more developed parts of the world have a better lot when it comes to what employers are allowed, and not allowed, to do.

If I were to wear a skirt with a company T-shirt when I?m off work, it could cost me my job.

Why would you do so in the first place? When you're "off the clock" you're off the clock -- why give them free advertising?

Too, where I work is my business, not some random passer-by's. It's also immaterial for any sort of interaction that I'm likely to have when I'm off the clock. So, unless you advertise who you work for the odds are pretty good that nobody will know and that essentially moots the objection of an overly-controlling corporate structure. For myself, I already cough up more than half my waking hours to The Man (and occasionally my sleeping ones, too), and I'll be damned if I'm going to give him any more (i.e. what "he" wants -- the rest).

I?ve already known of employees who were let go because of extra curricular activities that didn?t fit the company?s mission statement.

See my first paragraph.

One of the first things I do when I interview a company is to make sure that there are no shenanigans like that going on. If there are, I'll either look elsewhere or get certain things specifically exempted.

Sorry for the rant, but this is one of my very few "hot button" issues.

[Bravehearts.us]

Why would you do so in the first place? When you're "off the clock" you're off the clock -- why give them free advertising?

I don’t look at it as free advertising. They gave me the shirt and I like it.

So, unless you advertise who you work for the odds are pretty good that nobody will know and that essentially moots the objection of an overly-controlling corporate structure.

On any given day I will run into a half dozen people I work with when I’m off work.
Lar

[Skirt Chaser]

So wear a shirt with a competitor's logo and the kilt. :badlaugh:

[crfriend]

I don’t look at it as free advertising. They gave me the shirt and I like it.

OK, I can deal with that. No offence intended.

On any given day I will run into a half dozen people I work with when I’m off work.

Small town, perhaps? (Not a bad thing, mind you, I live in one myself and wouldn't change a thing.) There are advantages to working 30 miles from home.

The ultimate point I was trying to make is that we are free human beings (or at least like to think so ) and should not be under the direct control of others. Having a boss that can dictate your personal life to you just doesn't sit terribly well with me -- and sits less well with each passing year and erosion of the boundary between work and personal time. How we live our lives, what we wear, and whom we associate with whilst off the clock should not be anybody's business but our own.

[skirttron]

The funny thing about knee-or-below kilt length stipulations in the workplace is that they remind me of a mother's demands of a teenage daughter on her way out shopping for a skirt. I find it kind of amusing really.