Why Men Stopped Wearing Skirts [0:00:00]
So the other day on the community tab
I asked you, "Should men start to wear skirts again?"
Your response?
"We're already half way there with the oversized t-shirt style so why the hell not!"
"Not if it is during winter time..."
"It'll be too breezy for the likes of me"
"Nope. Some things should stay in the past and this is one of them"
"Hell No."
"Simple. No" "Gay."
But the comment that got me worked up.
"No. Can't think of a style for skirts that would look good one me nor can I think of a practical reason to wear one. Plus, one-fourth men at best have the legs/calves to pull it off."
Well, EJ Red. Let me explain.
So, when it comes to functionality, skirts make a lot of sense, a lot more than skinny
jeans. But, seriously, they’re easy to make, they
require less material during manufacture, and they fit so many different body types.
Skirts are also great in hot weather. You’re not crowding the boys, you’ve got more room
to breathe down there and it eliminates chaffing, if you know what I’m talking about.
And let’s not forget quick access whether you’re taking care of business in the bathroom
or the bedroom. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Guys, you are able to make
it happen. So, with all those advantages and the fact
that men are wearing skirts for thousands of years, why have skirts pretty much disappeared?
Now, in today’s video, gents, I’m going to be talking about the badass Scottish kilt,
the manly Indian dhoti, the historical Roman toga that’s still worn by the military Greek
fustanella, and of course not to forget the Malaysian sarong.
David Beckham pulled it off, but who pulled it off even better? The Malaysian Royal Guards.
Yeah, these guys just badasses. Now, the reality in the West is that most
men will never wear a skirt in public at least. But, seriously, it’s usually be one three
reasons. First up, disapproval of society. Now, my thoughts on this is I don’t care
what society thinks. Yes, I do to a degree, but no matter who I
voted for, the fact that I like to shoot guns, the fact that, you know, I’ve got a mind
of my own, society isn’t looking out for me. So, this should be one that try to have
the inner strength to overcome. Now, this next one is a little bit trickier
to navigate and that’s disapproval from your family and friends because these are
people we care about. And here’s the deal, you may want to wear that skirt, you may want
to wear that kilt, but what’s your wife going to think about it? Your girlfriend?
What are your kids, you know, I grew up with a mom that loved to dress very let’s just
say sexy. We would go to church, I disapproved of this. I was embarrassed. And I get it,
you know, people around you, you love them and you want to appease them because that
relationship is important. So, this could be for many of you guys the most difficult
one to overcome. The next thing holding you back, your own
self confidence. Now, stay tuned for the end of this video because I’m going to give
you seven steps if you want to start wearing a skirt or a kilt, how to actually do it.
Of course, let’s not forget the religious dogma. Deuteronomy 22:5, The woman shall not
wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment. For
all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.
Now, the problem with this even for a believer is there’s a lot left to interpretation
there. I mean, it would have been nice for God to be a little bit more specific. And
while He was at it, smite down square toed shoes.
But, seriously, I don’t see this pertaining to skirts because if you know your history,
skirts have been around for over a hundred thousand years, the history of men skirts
and clothing. Now, archeologists and anthropologists argue
over the exact time frame, but it’s believed that men and women have been wearing clothing
for over 30,000 years and possibly up to three million years ago, we started wearing furs.
Now, the general consensus is that we’ve been draping skins on our body for over a
hundred thousand years. And the earliest form of pinning that of bringing that around is
a skirt and basically draping it over the body and wearing it almost like a dress.
Now, in recorded history, the first instances we see a man wearing skirts are in ancient
Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia. In fact, in the Mesopotamian kingdom of Sumer, we see
a particular skirt worn by men known as the kaunakes.
Now, the word, kaunakes, usually referred to a sheep skin, but eventually became known
as that skirt, which, again, was worn for ceremonial purposes.
Now, when we look at the Assyrians, we look at the Babylonians, we look at the etchings
the carvings, the drawings that are left, we see that a number of kings and their servants
and their attendants are all wearing garments that look like skirts, basically French clothing
wrapped around their sleeved tunics. Now, the Egyptians, they were pretty equal
opportunity here. Both men and women wore a very similar type of tunic that also had
a skirt with it. And this was just simply common clothing for those that could have
clothing like this because it was still relatively expensive. And we saw this for hundreds if
not over a thousand years. And, in fact, in the old kingdom of Egypt,
again, we’re going back like 2100 B.C. There was a particular garment that was wrapped
around the hips and this was known as shendyt. These were depicted in hieroglyphics and we
know that it was made from a rectangular piece of material, it was wrapped around and tied
in front. Now, as time moved on, we move into the Middle
Kingdom of Egypt, all of a sudden you see the fashion trends shift towards longer skirts.
And when we’re talking longer, these things would go all the way down to the ankles and
would start up at the armpits. So, yeah, definitely a long skirt.
Now, as time went on and we entered the new kingdom of Egypt, it became fashionable for
men to wear skirts that actually had a pleated triangular section, which underneath would
also have a triangular loincloth. Now, of course, the Egyptians didn’t have
the monopoly on the man skirt because the Greeks also brought it in the ancient Greeks
and, in fact, they called this the chiton. Now, this is based off a Semitic word, kitten,
which is not to be confused with cat, which I’m probably mispronouncing all of these
stuff. And if I am, let me know down in the comments because you guys know I am not a
historian, I’m a YouTuber just trying to put this information out there and enjoying
doing it. But, yeah, you know, they saw this style worked,
it’s simple, so, yeah, the Greeks were skirt wearers and they liked it.
[0:04:57] Now, of course, anything the Greeks do, the
Romans think they can do better, so they went in and not only stole all their gods, but
of course stole the skirt as well. Now, the Romans through conquest and probably
other means of trade, all of the sudden you have the Celts picking up the skirt. You had
dramatic people picking up the skirt and everyone, yeah, really like this chitton.
And for hundreds of years throughout Europe, this style continued to flourish. Yeah, throughout
France, you had the Anglo-Saxons, you had the Normans, you had the Franks. Everyone
is loving this skirt because functionality-wise, it just got the job done and it was easy to
manufacture. When I say manufacture, I’m talking about
people making by hand because remember all clothing at this point is made by individual.
There’s no such things as factories to be able to get your stuff.
And, again, to illustrate how powerful, how entrenched the skirt was at this time, let’s
look at the armor of knights. Yes, that is a metal skirt. Did it provide much protection?
I’m not sure, but you know what? It looked good and, yeah, it was fashionable.
And here is the man skirt at the height of its power. You have arguably one of the most
powerful men in the world, King Henry VIII right here proudly wearing his skirt looking
good, setting trends. You can bet that the nobility, everyone around wanted to, you know,
imitate the king. You don’t want to go as high, you don’t
want to a hole on codpiece like this guy was pulling off in his armor, which is actually
a whole other story. But, you know, right skirts are just in and
when you see the most powerful, when you see the guys at the top wearing these skirts,
guess what? You want to imitate, you want to wear something like this.
I mean, just look at the Duke of Orange right here. I mean, he’s wearing the skirt, he’s
got that codpiece right in there. I mean, yeah, he is – this guy is a trendsetter.
So, with all these functionality aspects, the fact it was at its height just a few hundred
years ago, why did the skirt disappear? Well, first up, and this is something that
human beings have done for a long time, we like to separate the genders. Men dress this
way, women dress this way. Now, when we first started wearing clothing,
this was something that really wasn’t practical and you’re probably more worried about just
simply putting food on the table and surviving. But, as we had more free time, more idle time,
all of a sudden, yeah, we’re dividing the sexes and clothing and what you wear was one
of the first and easiest ways to do this. Now, initially this separations and in different
cultures around the world is very small. Oftentimes it’s embellishments, it’s actually the
functionality of the clothing. It seems men in general, we get the short end of the stick.
We don’t get the fancy stuff, which when I think about it brings me to a question,
why is it that women can wear men’s clothing and it’s not really that big of a deal,
but men can’t wear women’s clothing? It’s kind of seems like a double standard.
I’m not, you know, saying that I’m going to be going out there wearing dresses, but,
you know, people get all worked up about Harry Styles. I don’t know, what are your thoughts
on this? Let me know in the comments below. You guys know I love hearing from you. I love
learning from you. And, of course, you’re going to find some mistakes in today’s video,
let me know. I’ll try to make it better next time.
Now, gender differentiation alone wasn’t enough, but it did set the stage for what
happened in the 13th and 14th century. What we saw were all of a sudden is that scissors
could be reliably made. All of a sudden, you had given people the
ability to be able to craft clothing that was going to be a little bit more form fitting
to the body. And, you know, especially in the Western world with modesty, it was seen
as, you know, you didn’t want anything ever too close. Skinny jeans back then would had
got you killed. But, it was something that, yeah, you know,
we can actually make this new garment called trousers, pants, which for a lot of people
functionality-wise especially maybe getting on I don’t know up a horse, being able to
protect, you know, those areas right in there made sense for people in a lot of situations.
Now, tights, hose, these were actually pretty common not in the way we have them today with
elastic materials, but they were made with very, you know, oftentimes with a stretch
material like cotton. It would go back to a different form if exposed to heat.
But, what we saw with this type of clothing is all of a sudden people were able to make
it easier and all of a sudden you had a lot more people starting to wear pants. And the
majority of people that were wearing this were men, but they were still in many cases
wearing skirts over it. Well, as trousers and tights became much more
common, all of a sudden the skirt for many people just really started to disappear. It
was found to be redundant. It was found to get in the way and so, they started becoming
shorter. They started just evolving into basically shorts as we know them today.
When I say many people, I’m talking more men because on the women side, well, again,
they were wearing more dresses. They had clothing, again, that was very clearly separating them
from the men and all of a sudden especially as Christianity, Islam, other religions around
the world took greater hold and became a bigger part in people’s lives, all of a sudden
the separation of men and women and showing those gender differences especially from a
distance all of a sudden became a bigger deal. The death of the skirt though came in the
Victorian era. This is the great, you know, masculine renunciation. Basically, men stopped
wearing really flashy clothing. You saw Beau Brummell come in and a number of these other
guys all of a sudden were wearing dark colors. The suit came to become the men’s uniform.
[0:09:59] And the dress and the skirt, this was definitely
all of a sudden sided over with being feminine. So, no longer was it something that a king
would wear. Nah, all of a sudden, kings are wearing suits, they’re wearing dark colors.
Adding to this and making sure the skirt never came back, we see the rise of factory- manufactured
clothing. Clothing used to be and pretty much for most of human history was made by hand
by both men and women. But, in 1711, we started to see factory clothing
started to come up. 1811, actually over 30% of clothing was made in factories or at least
the pieces for it. All of a sudden, in 1911, that was turned on its head and only 30% of
clothing was handmade. And nowadays, I would say in 2011, 1% of clothing, less than 1%
was handmade. Why this is important? Because we’re not
going to go out there and make clothing, therefore what we have our choices are dictated to us
by basically, you know, what society says we should wear.
And when I say dictate for us, maybe that’s too hard. I would say economically incentivized
because why would you spend 30 hours making a garment, which you could, when you can actually
just trade that for two hours of labor. Now, gents, if you’re enjoying this video,
do me a favor and smash that like button. Seriously, I appreciate it when you guys engage
with this video and it lets me know to create more videos like this.
Now, is the skirt going to make a comeback? A lot of you guys over in India watching this
are saying, “Antonio, it never left.” And you are exactly right because if we get
our head out of just Western society, we’ll see many parts of the world are still wearing
skirts. The men over there love them because they know the benefits.
I mean, let’s just look at the Indian dhoti also known as the veshti and it comes with
many other names, this has been worn for thousands of years and these Indian men have been rocking
it. And, of course, I don’t want to leave out
my friends over in Pakistan or in Bangladesh. I see it, you guys are awesome.
Now, at the beginning of this video, I talked about the Malaysian sarong and there are many
different versions of this. I love the fact that it’s still in one of their dress uniforms,
just a great looking ins. You know, traditional guard not all guys are
wearing this, but it looks good and, yeah. And not nearly as common, but still worn in
one of their dress uniforms, we’ve got the Greek fustanella and if you’re familiar
with this, it actually has 400 pleats. And if you know what those pleats represent
and you’re Turkish for bonus, let me know in the comments below. And if you’re Greek,
it doesn’t matter or, you know, I know Bulgarians, Greeks, Turks, you guys love each other, right?
I’m going to get a lot of hate for that one.
And, of course, gents, the Scottish kilt, which right here as we can see James Bond
pulled off a kilt. So, what’s holding you back from actually wearing the skirt?
Well, I know what’s holding a lot of you guys back is you just need to get started.
So, how to start wearing a skirt? Okay. So, first up, do your research. Find
the one that speaks to you. Maybe you’re of Indian descent, you want to bring something
back from your heritage. Maybe you’re as Scottish descent, find the style that works
for you. Next up, join a group and this is a very simple
thing to do. Go on to Facebook, they’ve got different groups for different guys that
want to wear different types of skirts. This one right here I found Kilts and Culture
Facebook group. This one really healthy, over 20,000 members. Really cool, go check it out.
Next up, if you’re going to do this, shore up support at home. Talk to your wife, talk
to your girlfriend, talk to your kids, make, hey, see what people think about it. And if
they’re against it, just ask them why, talk to them more. But, basically, you want to
have a soft landing when you introduce it. Step four, keep it simple. I keep going back
to kilts because I love these utility kilts. But, again, if you can bring something in
with your heritage, you’re Malaysian, then bring it in bring in that Sarong and find.
But, that’s what’s I love is actually when you’ve got a connection, maybe you’ve
been travelled to that country, but the utility skirt, again, for me just it seems like something
I could wear around the house and, you know, wear working in my garage.
So, but it, keep it simple and then, practice. So, yeah, wear it around the house. Don’t
wear it out in public, simply wear it into your home office, wear, you know, into your
own garage to work around the house because you’re practicing, you’re putting in the
reps you’re getting used to it. Next up, wear out with friends and family.
Again, these are people that know you’re going to be wearing it, they’ve – you’ve
already worn it around the house. Maybe you didn’t even think about it.
And this is what you want to get to, the last point here is just simply take it from there,
because what you’re going to find is once you’ve put them to reps, once you’ve practiced,
you’re going to forget about it and you are going to run to the grocery store not
even thinking that you’re wearing this thing and you’re going to realize, hey, you know,
I – I enjoyed this or maybe you don’t and you’ll become the talk of your town.
All right, gents, so what video to watch next? How about what happen to the cape, why did
men stop wearing capes? I’ve got you covered in this video. I go
into the history. I talk about the details. The boat cloak, yes, I talk about it here.
It is a good looking cape and I do have one and I wear it in this video, so check it out.
[0:14:37] End of audio