'Men in Skirts' exposes a fashion foible

NEW YORK, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Men wear skirts in many Asian, African, and Oceanic cultures but in Westernized society influenced by European style traditions, the male doffed his skirts in the mid-14th century and began wearing pants.

The story of how men keep reverting to skirts and other pantless fashions is told brilliantly in a new show "Bravehearts: Men in Skirts" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Fashion Institute. It is sponsored by fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier, who has led the contemporary movement to put men into skirts, and curated by the Met's young British fashion curator, Andrew Bolton.

Bolton has produced a greatly enlarged version of a show mounted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London last year that attracted unusual public attention, possibly because the men of the British royal family are addicted to wearing kilts on gala occasions, a style set by none other than Prince Albert in the 1840s.

Of the 120 mannequins in the show, more are dressed in kilt-like garb than any other type of skirt. The 1995 movie "Braveheart" showed that kilts can be as masculine as the fierce face paint worn by Scottish warriors of old and inspired many kilted fashions in traditional tartans, leather, camouflage material, and at least one in mink, a design by Gaultier.

The show is rich in examples of the classic robes of antiquity and native costumes from countries around the world displayed side-by-side with modern fashions that quote them. These are usually in the form of sports or leisure wear but sometimes as garments for grunge dressing and the club scene as represented by skirted costumes worn by Boy George and fashion provocateur Leigh Bowery in the 1980s and copied for the new Broadway musical "Taboo" starring George playing Bowery.

The idea of men in women's dress has been a taboo in some cultures since the dawn of civilization because it confused the sexual identity of the wearer.

A quote from the Bible's Old Testament, displayed at the show's entrance, specifically decrees that "A Man shall not put on women's garments, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God." The eye is immediately led to a showcase display of Roman Catholic clerical garb that put priests and even the pope into skirts and inspired a number of modern designers.

Actually ecclesiastical robes were fashioned after Roman togas and mantles and designed to conceal the body, thus deflecting attention from the wearer's physical and sexual presence. The priest's black soutane is an elegant cassock that inspired Gaultier to design a long black wool casual robe for men in 1994 and Kym Barrett to design a similar robe in burgundy for Keanu Reeves for the film "Matrix Reloaded."

But most contemporary skirted garments for men are designed to show off the male physique, especially the leg, and even the kilt of medieval Scottish origins focused on the knee. Going back to the ancient Greeks for inspiration, Gaultier designed "the locker room chiton" for men out of football jersey, draped to provide a glimpse of leg and other muscular parts of the body.

Such late 20th century designers as Dolce & Gabbana and Donna Karan used body wraps, sarongs, and pareos worn by both men and women in tropical parts of the world, as a design source for beach and resort wear, just as the elongated shirt of Muslim lands -- notably the Moroccan caftan -- has been transformed into lounge wear for the home by Roberto Cavalli, Miguel Adrover, Franco Moschino, and Kenzo.

The trend got is start in England in the 1700s when the Indian Hindu chogha inspired dressing gowns like the one fashioned of magnificent gold damask on exhibit. As early as the 1660s, Englishmen and other Europeans had begun wearing coats that were so long and full that they achieved a feminine silhouette and almost concealed the knee-length breeches underneath. Full-skirted frock coats were popular until World War I.

Skirted dresses were also the preferred garb for boys up to eight years of age in Europe and America until the early 1900s, and four examples are on display. There was even a ceremony in the home when a boy got his first trousers called "the breeching ceremony."

"Clothes do not make the man," the old saying goes, but they certainly have a way of emphasizing masculinity, whether skirted or bifurcated. An African Masai warrior's wrap cloth supported by one shoulder so as to expose a well-developed chest was the inspiration for a series of Giorgio Armani wraps that have an aggressive masculinity.

Scotland wasn't the only European nation to develop skirted garb for men, although it is the only nation that has such garb as the national costume. The show includes the Greek fustanella skirt made of stiff fustian material, still worn by the members of the army's evzone guards, and the Hungarian gatya, capacious trousers that give the illusion of a skirt, now used as a dress-up costume for horsemen.

Among the most exotic and certainly the most provocative male skirts displayed are made of brightly dyed plant fibers and worn without a shirt by the Pacific island peoples and Peruvian Indians. The sexy sub-culture fashions designed by Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Dexter Wong, Anna Sui, and Michiko Koshino, to be worn as badges of subversion, can't hold a candle to these crude tutus that somehow seem more masculine than pants.

Perhaps Suzy Menkes, the fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune, summed it all up when she once remarked, "Skirts have been worn by men since antiquity, and whether clothes are for men or women is all in the head."