Fendi skirts the issue
Earlier this year, at the Milan Fashion Week—a trade show for haute couture where the biggest names in the fashion industry and fledgling brands get together to showcase their latest creations—the Italian fashion house, Fendi, paraded its upcoming offerings for this fall and winter. Men sauntered down the runway wearing apparel that challenged our expectations of how men should dress.
Sometime after that gala, Fendi launched its ad campaign to promote the Fall/Winter 2024-2025 collection, which it launched online and in boutiques in July this year. The campaign featured its freshest faces: the British actor Nicholas Galitzine and Zhang Ruoyun, the Chinese actor.
The creation of Silvia Venturini Fendi—the third-generation matriarch of the Fendi brand—the clothing collection is a mix of “the urban and the bucolic.” Galitzine looks dapper in a garment likely meant to be worn in a bucolic setting and not something that a man would show up to work in.
It’s a slouchy skirt.
The Great Kilt & Other Menswear
The Scots have worn the “great” kilt—a pleated skirt made of wool and has a tartan pattern—since the 16th century. The modern, “little” kilt emerged in the 18th century. Except in Scotland, men of the West and who live in the West, don’t don such outfits. In West Africa, though, Yoruba men wear a flowing robe called the agbada. In the Middle East, its counterpart is a tunic, known as the dishdasha.
That got me thinking. What about the men of the East?
I remember boarding a train with my parents at a noisy terminus in Kolkata bound for a town called Krishnanagar, famous for its decorative clay figurines and home to my grandparents, on my mom’s side. We would go there to spend the holidays with them.
My grandpa, whom I loved dearly, would greet us at the entrance to his bungalow, draped in a “thing.” To me, who had seen my dad dressed only in pinstripes and tweeds and trousers and jackets and ties, it intrigued me to see my grandpa in a costume that was so radically different.
I knew that it wasn’t a saree, which my mom wore. It also wasn’t anything like what I wore to school, which was a pinafore.
It was something in between and it could, therefore, only be a thing. I wondered if my grandma made it for him by cutting drapes.
My grandpa’s dhoti
Of course, I knew later that my grandpa wore a “lungi.” He wore it at home and only at home, though. When he stepped out, he slipped into “Western” clothing.
The lungi is casualwear for men in many regions of India, though, it’s particularly popular in the southern states: Tamil Nadu, Kerela, Andhra Pradesh. The demand for lungis is robust, with a vast array of brands competing for a share of the market.
Some lungis are sewn and look like a tube. Others may be open and require to be knotted at the waist.
The elevated lungi
New Era Textiles, a store based in Tamil Nadu, which didn’t respond to a query from India Currents, writes that it has taken the humble lungi, a garment, which has often been overlooked and elevated it by adding vibrancy. The company makes lungis in the ikat weave and two-toned palettes, among other motifs.
The lungi predates the kilt by nearly a geological era. But like kilts, lungis too, are colorful.
The lungi is believed to have arrived in South India by way of traders from Southeast Asia, sometime before the 10th century. It then spread to the rest of the peninsula. (Little wonder that it resembles the sarong.)
Dude in dresses
It’s one thing for models to flaunt a skirt walking the catwalk. But would a dude who loves his Carhartt be cool about wearing it? There’s a thread on Reddit, which asks that very question: “What are your thoughts on men who wear skirts? Do you think they look feminine and out of place in society?”
One opinion was that a man who wears a skirt would look feminine unless the skirt or something like a skirt was an established costume in that person’s heritage. But if it wasn’t, it would draw a few “second glances,” but it wouldn’t trigger an uproar.
Another commenter said that a skirt, being airy would be good sartorial choice for men living in hot climes.
Another contributor to that conversation, one at the far end of the spectrum, added that “skirts are made for women and they don’t fit the frames of men.” So, “they would make a man look weak and that wouldn’t be a good look.”
Gear for gents
Someone else felt that man could wear a skirt only if his physique allowed him to carry it well. They wrote: “I don’t think I want to see a man weighing 400 pounds wearing a skirt.” And yet, “manly men have worn skirts to battle and been victorious. “I would buy them a beer in heaven or hell.”
What we wear isn’t dictated by biology, but shaped by social mores and now, by marketers and social media influencers. If more and more men take cue from Galitzine and strut about in a skirt, they may just about succeed in making it grow into a trend and if the trend stays long enough, it could evolve into a perfectly acceptable attire for gents to wear.
I, for one, get my clothes from the men’s department.
