Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I was just watching "Spring Baking" show with Duff Goldman (male) and 2 women judges and the judges were filmed standing up commenting on contestants. Duff was wearing a brown skirt, looked like canvas material and the 2 female judges were wearing slacks.
I agree that skirts, pants, dresses are societal conventions. Women and men should be able to dress the way they want but it will cause a commotion in certain conservative areas. I (female) love being able to wear skorts or shorts why shouldn't men get the same choices?
I applaud him for expressing who he is and finding his confidence despite a society that's going to call him weird. But like others, I don't know that work is the place for that level of expression. If there are women in the office wearing Lolita style outfits, then it should be okay for him to do as well. Otherwise, I think he needs to conform to the workplace norms, even if still in a feminine style.
Men have been wearing dresses for centuries. Ancient Romans wore draped togas. Men in the 14th century wore tights under skirts almost daily.
The Great Male Renunciation (French: Grande Renonciation masculine) is the historical phenomenon at the end of the 18th century in which Western men stopped using brilliant or refined forms in their dress, which were left to women's clothing.
So, the pants trend for men is pretty recent - long gowns and full-skirted coats remained acceptable and fashionable parts of the male wardrobe until the first half of the 20th century,
BTW:
Until World War I, little boys were dressed in skirts and had long hair. Sexual “color coding” in the form of pink or blue clothing for infants was not common in this country [the US] until the 1920s; before that time male and female infants were dressed in identical white dresses.
Boys and girls were identical white dresses because many children died before age 3. As children's mortality went from 43.3% in 1880 to 30% in 1900 to 25% in 1920. As children were expected to live longer, parents invested more money into clothing.
Before disposable diapers, it made sense for children to wear dresses for the ease of changing cloth diapers which tended to leak.
As for men wearing tights - its complicated.
Quote:
Around the 11th century a new class of warrior appears, the mounted soldier, or the Medieval knight. The knight soon became the elite of society and everybody wanted to emulate them. One feature of the knights clothing was that they wore long stockings to cover their legs instead of lose trousers, this was because the trousers would not fit under the chain mail stockings they wore as leg protection. They wore the stockings even when not in armour to show off their status. Soon everybody started to copy them.
Eventually in later centuries the long stockings were joined together at the top for convenience, and evolved into tights.
Tights became tighter and tunics became shorter, all to show off the masculine figure.
Just as some today are alarmed at these acts of pantlessness, so too were some living in the Middle Ages. One author from the 14th century considered thinly disguised buttocks to be a deformation for otherwise honest men, and a Parisian bishop from the same time period preached that this type of dress was utterly shameful. Historical examples of tights-as-pants are on view in Fashion in the Middle Ages, our exhibition of medieval manuscripts that closes this Sunday.
Manuscript illuminators used costume to help place figures in the strict social hierarchy of the Middle Ages and to identify people by profession. Monks, doctors, lawyers, knights, scholars, queens, and courtiers could all be recognized at a glance by their distinctive clothing.
According to a law of 1463, short gowns that revealed men's buttocks were restricted to the upper classes
So I am imagining where I work, someone showing up like that. The most radical thing I have seen is a guy in long shorts and athletic top, hiding in his cube and hitting the gym under the radar.
Other than that, if a guy at our org came in dressed like that or we saw a guy walking down the hallway, we would simply think he was off. Also we have "violence in the workplace" training and they tell you to look for red flags, like people going through a crisis. I imagine the security folks would have their eye on him.
People wear what they want. Nothing new in this crazy society.
In the US at least, this wouldn't necessarily violate a written dress code. Unless there was something in it about distracting clothing, which is very subjective. I work in a very flexible environment. I've seen guys in kilts, people in full goth attire, women in saris, anything is okay as long as you're getting your work done.
I remember “metrosexuals” who were sort of seen as being effeminate. Even today, I prefer bold prints and colors and get a little jealous that ladies’ cuts don’t suit me well as they have all the fun stuff! Lolita-related is a bit much for me though.
He must work at a lenient place. I worked at law firms for decades. Law firms and courts have definite rules of dress, so that wouldn't have worked there. Breaking the rules. It also would've cost the firm clients. Even Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, & Johnny Depp wore business attire in court. For some businesses, like Court, the emphasis is on the work and the business, not your attire.
But the tech world has always been a little different in that regard. And the art world.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
