I like skirts and I cannot lie

Late last year, I attended the Burning Man festival in Nevada. It was a last-minute decision on my part, principally because I’m a hugely indecisive person, but also because I wasn’t sure it was the sort of thing I would enjoy. I can now tell you that it was among the best decisions I’ve ever made, and I haven’t quite stopped trying to evangelise it ever since. I found many things fascinating about Burning Man, and I’ll have a headful of memories of it for life, one of which will be the fact that I wore a succession of skirts during the five days I spent there.

About those skirts, then. I certainly hadn’t carried any with me, and the plan was to wear a bunch of linen trousers, since it’s rather hot and very dusty out there. I discovered, however, that even those trousers were a bit restrictive, especially when riding a bicycle (which I was constantly doing — the place is huge, and it’s the best way to get around). Thus, I appropriated some of my partner’s skirts, as one does, and found that they were among the best articles of clothing I’d ever worn. At a practical level, they made for much easier bicycle riding, since I also rode a women’s bike (which, for its ease of use, is the only kind of bike I’ll get if I ever decide to purchase one); more importantly, their comfort levels were off the charts. It was like wearing a lower-body garment and not wearing anything at all, simultaneously. The light fabric felt great against my skin, and I’m now a lifelong fan of the kind of air circulation that a skirt affords; I immediately wondered why I hadn’t worn one before.

Others, however, wondered if I was feeling all right, some vocally and some in the way they looked at me. A rugged Israeli, who had camped next door to us and seemed to have an Escobar-esque stash of substances, made several concerted efforts to seduce my partner and was genuinely nonplussed when she told him that we were in a seven-year relationship. “Him?”, he had apparently asked. “But I thought he is gay, no? He is wearing skirts and also a pink T-shirt.” 

I was right in the middle of one of the oldest clichés in existence — wearing ‘feminine’ clothes and colours had somehow drained my being of all testosterone and transformed me into a homosexual.

I mention all this because, apart from being a nonsensical assumption, this patriarchal view of what a ‘real’ man should or shouldn’t wear prevents men from fully expressing themselves in the way that they dress. I edit a men’s lifestyle magazine, and in this sphere, it’s true that I see quite a few men who aren’t afraid of taking chances with their clothes — but it’s a tiny sphere; out on the street, or at social and family gatherings, it’s quite rare to see men going out on a sartorial limb. I’m not just referring to skirts — it has to do with colours, accessories, cuts and many more elements. If, for example, I wear a perfectly ‘masculine’ ensemble to an event — a button-down shirt, a tie, a blazer, trousers, socks and dress shoes — but the tie is polka-dotted, the trousers pink, the shoes Spectators, the socks deliberately mismatched and the lapel pin a flower, I’m either looked at somewhat askance or told, in a wistful manner, “I wish I had the balls to dress like that.”

My response is that testicles have nothing to do with it; indeed, dressing in exactly the manner that you wish is a sign of confidence, of self-expression, and of just plain fun. It doesn’t diminish you as a man, I can tell you with certainty, and if these stifling rules are broken more often, and with more enthusiasm, I’m pretty sure most men will emerge much the better for it — I know I have.

Pablo Chaterji is the Managing Editor at Man’s World, India’s pioneering men’s lifestyle magazine. He has a worrying shoe addiction.

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