When Billy Porter wore a Christian Siriano robe to the Oscars in 2019, it far more than an epic trend instant: It was a daring display screen of queer pleasure. The headline-earning instant undoubtedly got people today talking. “You never have to realize or even agree with other people’s authenticity or truths, but we ought to all respect every other,” Porter told Vogue in 2019. “People are going to be truly awkward with my Black ass in a ball gown—but it is not anybody’s enterprise but mine.”
Two decades later on, and it is obvious that Porter was on to some thing. This yr, we’ve viewed all sorts of men’s skirts from Thom Browne (who has very long perfected the kilt skirt for him and her), to Louis Vuitton, Chopova Lowena, and far more. Men’s skirts are absolutely not a new strategy. Designers like Jean Paul Gaultier were being showing men’s skirts back in the ’90s, and numerous regular men’s skirts have existed for generations, this sort of as the Scottish tartan kilt and the ground-length Indian mundu. However, the sheer abundance and availability of men’s skirts in trend now is surely noteworthy. Frankly, it is about time.
Who exactly is the clientele? Positive, threat-having stars this kind of as Porter, Kanye West, Jared Leto, Marc Jacobs, and Harry Designs have all proudly stepped out in skirts. But I’ve found much more trend-ahead guys and nonbinary folks completely ready to embrace skirts much too. Even I, a man who’s never ever worn a skirt, have discovered myself drawn to the concept of layering 1 atop my trousers this drop, like how Chopova Lowena has often styled it.
Quin Lewis, who is a Washington-centered overseas-affairs official by working day, is a frequent skirt wearer and road design and style fixture at the menswear reveals. “I feel truly badass when I’m sporting a skirt,” claims Lewis. “There is the perception that I’m accomplishing something which is going versus the grain and skirting the regulations on what would usually be believed of as appropriate attire for gentlemen.” Fish Fiorucci, a nonbinary design, adds that they’ve usually worn skirts and sights them as a piece that shouldn’t be gendered. “I’ve never recognized why skirts ended up labeled for women of all ages: Skirts are genderless to me, and also ageless,” states Fiorucci. “They allow me to dwell in unique eras depending on the size, sort of material, and match.”