skirtcafe.org

Male body types.

Here is a video series from an ex-army professional kilt maker in which he takes a kilt previously made to fit a man, and converts it to fit a woman. In this series he explains how the pleats need to be shaped differently to fit a male vs female figure. For a female, the pleats have a uniform taper along their entire length, while for a male the top part of the pleat is parallel, while the lower part of it is tapered.

This difference is due to the shape of the male vs female body around the hips, and aligns the shape of the garment's silhouette with the actual shape of the wearers body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4Fp2eu ... dxijO42-vR


Second, if you look at menswear circa the 17th century and prior, there are skirted, and skirt-adjacent garments *everywhere*. Most of these would fall into the category of 'dresses' nowadays, but they look way more proportionate and flattering than 'a man wearing a woman's dress'. These garments were designed to harmonise with the shape of a male body.

There is an example at the following URL, and countless more in the book 'The cut of men's clothes'.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... -prado.jpg

The garment shown in the above picture, like the Scottish kilt, puts the skirt fullness in the back, and this is a trend I've seen often in male skirted garments. Also, eliminating the waist split (a 'dress') is often visually advantageous.

From my own observations, the main reason that men wearing skirts typically looks weird is due to garment proportions or garment shape being visually dissonant with the body of the person wearing it. If one understands the cause of those issues, fixing them is trivial. Doing so ideally requires either a garment that is designed for men from the start (like kilts and skirtcraft's garments), or sewing such that one can alter something to fit them better.

Men wearing skirts will not be accepted into mainstream culture while the majority of outfits people (people generally, not the users of this forum), are putting together and posting online look proportionally weird. Actually paying attention to what looks good for one's own body type makes it very possible to find things that look 100% natural for the individual.

There is more to this than 'ruffles vs no ruffles'. There are countless examples of ruffly and decorative garments in male fashion history and a lot of it looks congruent with the wearer and outfit as a whole.

Also, some general awareness of men's fashion history would be extremely valuable. There is little awareness of it vs woman's fashion history in the general population.

STEVIE wrote: ↑Tue Nov 04, 2025 6:30 am

robehickman wrote: ↑Tue Nov 04, 2025 1:18 am A sewing machine is just a power tool, they aren't hard to use.
I shared some things that do work in this article:

With all respect RH, none of this explains your use of the word "need" in the title.
The simple fact is that many designers in a variety of fields have little or no interest in the technical execution of their creativity.
How many architects could or would wish to physically build a house for instance.
What's more, this discussion has led precisely nowhere in "normalising" skirts for men in any way, whatsoever.
Please note I am not criticising you, but I will challenge the words as I see fit.
Steve.

Need may be too strong, but it is advantageous in freeing oneself from the constraints of what is already available in the world.

The more people (generally) have exposure to men wearing skirted garments that look good and coherent, the more that it is going to become accepted again, and the more that other people would be willing to try it. The concern I have is that I see a lot of outfits that look proportionally weird or visually top heavy, and this isn't going to inspire anyone. However there are numerous examples of things that work very well in fashion history, and the proportional issues are not hard to compensate for.

I am sorry for my previous response to you.

In terms of couture, we have seen outfits on the runways.

robehickman wrote: ↑Wed Nov 05, 2025 1:26 am Need may be too strong, but it is advantageous in freeing oneself from the constraints of what is already available in the world.
I am sorry for my previous response to you.

RH, I thankyou for being gracious.
Fundamentally, we actually do agree but approach it from different angles.
Fact is that we are not all the same and yes, bespoke items interest me greatly, but my purse is limited.
Therefore, over the years, I have adapted, evolved and compromised too.
Did I look "weird"?
There's no doubt that in certain folks eyes, I assuredly did but fortunately, I learned to please my own good self.
I hope now we can look forward to productive discussion without rancour.
Thanks.
Steve.
PS if you produce something, I may consider making a purchase.