Uploaded April 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Fashion history confirms : Real men wear skirts! And dresses. Menswear worldwide and all through men's fashion history was full of men in skirts, from medieval tunics to kilts, dhoti, kimono, and more. Get $20 off your Brooklinen order over $100! Just click here bit.ly/SnappyDragon_BrooklinenApr24 and enter my promo code SnappyxDragon. This video is kindly sponsored by Brooklinen.
Should men wear skirts? Men's skirts today are gender nonconforming clothing, but fashion history is full of skirts and dresses that were definitely mens fashion! It's often said that the ancient Romans considered trousers barbaric, and Roman fashion was full of dress-like tunics for men. Why don't we call them dresses? Gender stereotypes in fashion. In medieval mens fashion, it was more common to wear a tunic over long hose rather than trousers or pants, and long skirts symbolized status and wealth. Traditional attire from all over the world includes skirts for men, from the well-known Scottish kilt to the Albanian and Greek fustanella, the Yemeni izaar, the Arabic thawb, a huge number of sarong and wrap skirt styles, and even Japanese kimono. These are only some of the traditional skirts in mens style through the ages, and throughout fashion history, skirts and dresses have been gender neutral clothing as often as not.
Why did men stop wearing skirts? It's complicated : fashion evolution is affected by colonization and globalization, as well styles changing gender expression over time. In the early Renaissance, fashionable tunics became too short to wear with hose instead of pants, so pants made a comeback in historical men's clothing in Europe. It's fascinating to dissect the cultural, social, and practical reasons behind the gendering of garments, especially as mens skirts come back into fashion today! We're seeing them on the red carpet in the form of Billy Porter's amazing tuxedo ballgowns, on runways and designer shows, and I see them on the street here in San Francisco. The relationship between clothing and gender is far from static—it's squishy, malleable, and ripe for reevaluation. Whether you're a history buff, a fashion enthusiast, or simply curious about the fluidity of gender norms through the ages, this video is your ticket to understanding how skirts for men went from mainstream to marginalized, and are now making a thrilling comeback.If you want to wear a skirt, wear a skirt! And you can do it knowing that no matter your gender, fashion history has your back.
Join my Patreon for Discord access, behind-the-scenes updates, pattern diagrams, research lists, monthly video chats, and more! patreon.com/snappydragonstudios
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I do not take personal costume/sewing or research commissions.
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Several images in this video are lisenced under Creative Commons, where specified : creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en , creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Tavern Loop One by Alexander Nakarada (CreatorChords) | creatorchords.com
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Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
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Fashion history confirms : Real men wear skirts! And dresses. Menswear worldwide and all through men's fashion history was full of men in skirts, from medieval tunics to kilts, dhoti, kimono, and more. Get $20 off your Brooklinen order over $100! Just click here bit.ly/SnappyDragon_BrooklinenApr24 and enter my promo code SnappyxDragon. This video is kindly sponsored by Brooklinen.
Should men wear skirts? Men's skirts today are gender nonconforming clothing, but fashion history is full of skirts and dresses that were definitely mens fashion! It's often said that the ancient Romans considered trousers barbaric, and Roman fashion was full of dress-like tunics for men. Why don't we call them dresses? Gender stereotypes in fashion. In medieval mens fashion, it was more common to wear a tunic over long hose rather than trousers or pants, and long skirts symbolized status and wealth. Traditional attire from all over the world includes skirts for men, from the well-known Scottish kilt to the Albanian and Greek fustanella, the Yemeni izaar, the Arabic thawb, a huge number of sarong and wrap skirt styles, and even Japanese kimono. These are only some of the traditional skirts in mens style through the ages, and throughout fashion history, skirts and dresses have been gender neutral clothing as often as not.
Why did men stop wearing skirts? It's complicated : fashion evolution is affected by colonization and globalization, as well styles changing gender expression over time. In the early Renaissance, fashionable tunics became too short to wear with hose instead of pants, so pants made a comeback in historical men's clothing in Europe. It's fascinating to dissect the cultural, social, and practical reasons behind the gendering of garments, especially as mens skirts come back into fashion today! We're seeing them on the red carpet in the form of Billy Porter's amazing tuxedo ballgowns, on runways and designer shows, and I see them on the street here in San Francisco. The relationship between clothing and gender is far from static—it's squishy, malleable, and ripe for reevaluation. Whether you're a history buff, a fashion enthusiast, or simply curious about the fluidity of gender norms through the ages, this video is your ticket to understanding how skirts for men went from mainstream to marginalized, and are now making a thrilling comeback.If you want to wear a skirt, wear a skirt! And you can do it knowing that no matter your gender, fashion history has your back.
Join my Patreon for Discord access, behind-the-scenes updates, pattern diagrams, research lists, monthly video chats, and more! patreon.com/snappydragonstudios
Or, you can buy me some Ko-Fi : ko-fi.com/snappydragon
Follow me on IG for more stitchy business : @missSnappyDragon
For business inquiries, send an e-mail to : SnappyDragon at TBHonestSocial dot Com
I do not take personal costume/sewing or research commissions.
Want to send me letters? Send mail to PO Box 11573, Oakland CA, 94611! Letters and cards only please 💚
Several images in this video are lisenced under Creative Commons, where specified : creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en , creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Tavern Loop One by Alexander Nakarada (CreatorChords) | creatorchords.com
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0







![Historical Costume vs Catcalling : Feminist fashion trends men hated
Fashion Trends Men Hate isnt a new thing. Nor is street harassment or catcalling. Hoopskirts, hat pins, and more of these feminist historical fashion trends helped fight unwanted advances and catcalls by maintaining personal space, keeping men at a distance, symbolizing womens power, and even LITERALLY STABBING men who grabbed women on the street. Lets chat about the fashion history and gender politics behind Elizabethan puffy sleeves, 18th century hoopskirts, Victorian crinolines and bustles, huge Regency bonnets and Edwardian hats, and the Hatpin Peril that led to bans all over the world! But most importantly, in the era of #MeToo and Times Up, what this dive into the feminism of historical dress will show us that sexual harassment has NEVER been about what the victim was wearing.
Men have been writing about womens fashion for centuries, and youd be surprised how many 18th century and Victorian magazines have articles that read like a modern list of fashion trends men hate. This goes back to the early 18th century with the resurgence of hoopskirts, and continued into the 20th century with the Hatpin Peril— a supposed epidemic of mashers (Edwardian slang for creeps) stabbed with hatpins for bothering women out in public. Inspired by a quote in The Cut Of Womens Clothes by Nora Waugh, and a tumblr post about how no one actually thought bustles were fake butts, I combed through dozens of ancient magazines and newspapers to figure out why men of the past couldnt handle Women Wearing Clothes. Dress history tells us a fascinating story about how historical dresses prevented men grabbing arms, kept unwanted male advances at a distance, and in a pinch defended against violence. They also empowered women! From Queen Elizabeth I dazzling her courtiers in huge dresses, to 18th century women flirting on purpose with their hoopskirts, Victorian working-class women breaking down class barriers with fashionable clothes, and Edwardian women going places on their own, safe in the knowledge they carried concealed weapons, fashion and feminism have always worked together in some ways.
#MashersBeware #HatpinPeril
Join my Patreon for behind-the-scenes updates, pattern diagrams, research lists, monthly video chats, and more! https://www.patreon.com/snappydragonstudios
Or, you can buy me some Ko-Fi : https://ko-fi.com/snappydragon
Follow me on IG for more stitchy business : @missSnappyDragon
For business inquiries, send an e-mail to : SnappyDragonStitches at Gmail dot Com
I do not take personal costume/sewing or research commissions.
Want to send me letters? Send mail to PO Box 3884, Berkeley CA, 94703! Letters and cards only please 💚
0:00 Why not to catcall historical costumers
0:28 What fashion has to do with harassment
2:01 Gendered terms
2:55 Giant Elizabethan sleeves
4:56 18th century hoopskirts
8:02 Satirical Regency bonnets
10:05 : Victorian bustles and crinolines
12:40 The Hatpin Peril
15:47 The Point
Works Sighted (a highly informal bibliography)
Gilded Age Garbage Fires post that started it all : https://marzipanandminutiae.tumblr.com/post/175188840617/its-hilarious-to-me-when-people-call-historical
The Cut of Womens Clothes by Nora Waugh
Internet Archive copy of Fynes Morysons Itinerary : https://archive.org/stream/fynesmorysons04moryuoft/fynesmorysons04moryuoft_djvu.txt
the Cecil Papers, including Jones Bill for the Q[ueens] Gown. : https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-cecil-papers/vol14/pp31-49
Kimberly Chrismans paper Unhoop the Fair Sex: The Campaign Against the Hoop Petticoat in Eighteenth-Century England. : https://www.jstor.org/stable/30053852?seq=1
Project Gutenberg copy of The Tatler containing the Trial Of The Hooped Petticoat : https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31645/31645-h/31645-h.htm
Project Gutenberg copy of The Spectator, no. 127 contains a letter about hooped petticoats : https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html
Hathi Trust copy of the London Magazine from January 1741, containing one Mr. Stonecastles letter on page 84 : https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015021277838&view=1up&seq=84&q1=petticoat
Crinoline for domestic use cartoon from the Hathi Trust Digital Library and the University of Michigan : https://victorianweb.org/periodicals/punch/clothing/12.html
Archive.org copy of Routledges Manual of Etiquette : https://archive.org/stream/routledgesmanual12426gut/12426.txt
The New York Evening World article about Leoti Blaker : https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1903-05-27/ed-1/seq-3/
The San Francisco Call article about a hatpin and a train robbery : https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1898-01-11/ed-1/seq-6/
Vomit emoji by Twitter/Twemoji, lisenced under Creative Commons : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
Music from EpidemicSound. Historical Costume vs Catcalling : Feminist fashion trends men hated](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fSPa402MRPc/mqdefault.jpg)


