Introduction When reading over all the Autumn/Winter fashion show reports of 2015 I spotted a regular appearance of skirts and dresses. Normally, you wouldn’t think this unusual, however this was trending among the menswear collections. It seemed that the skirt had become much more popular for men over recent seasons. Previously my perception of men wearing skirts was that it belonged exclusively to potent figures in fashion, such as Marc Jacobs. I found this prevalence intriguing and wanted to investigate why in society we assign particular styles of clothing to specific genders. After asking some of my fellow female students about this trend, some felt that the wearing of a skirt by a man was slightly effeminate. Why does this garment have such feminine connotations? Where has this association derived from? This led me to consider the expression of femininity in contemporary menswear. Whilst I have previously been aware of the use of androgyny in womenswear, it occurred to me that the use femininity in menswear was not treated with the same level of acceptance. My starting point was to look at what we define as masculinity in our modern day society and our perceptions of gender. Using these principles I wanted to explore why the skirt has become synonymous with femininity.
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