How Masculine Style IDs do Skirts

If your Style Identity consists solely of Natural Dramatic, and/or Gamine, and you've purchased your What Not To Wear guide, you've probably seen that your skirt no-no section is really long. 

If you think about it, it makes sense -- all three of these essences are masculine, and, in our culture, skirts are iconically feminine garments.

So what skirts do you get to wear?

What I'm going to say next may sound weird, but it's really good advice to understand which skirts will look best on you:

Anything skirt-like that a man could pull off will probably work for you. 

All around the world, throughout history and continuing today, men do wear skirt-like garments -- and they make them work!

​Dramatic, Natural, and Gamine women, men's skirt shapes are our skirt shapes. 

Now, I know that this may be a difficult idea for some of us to accept, because we want to feel pretty, and we are invested in the idea that pretty = feminine. 

But it's my goal to destigmatize "masculinity" for women, so that we can accurately acknowledge those features in ourselves. 

In style analysis, see, "masculine" and "feminine" are not two discrete groups at opposite poles of a binary.

Instead, there are "masculine" features and "feminine" features.

Many, but not all, men have predominantly "masculine" features.  

Many, but not all, women have predominantly "feminine" features.

​Most of us have some of both. And we look awesome!  

Check out models: the most gorgeous female models often have a lot of masculinity in their features, and the most gorgeous male models often have a lot of femininity.

If you're a strongly Natural, Dramatic, or Gamine woman, you have masculine elements in your appearance. Own it and love it!  :-)

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Anyway... for us women with a lot of Natural, Dramatic, or Gamine, the skirts that complement "masculine" features are the skirts that will look great on us. ​

So, what features define "men's" skirts?

Masculine skirts are almost always very straight, sharp-cornered, and simple.

Masculine skirts  are usually very long, which fits wiith the fact that Dramatic and Natural are elongated essences. They can occasionally be very short, and very short skirts work for both Naturals and Gamines. 

​The outline of a masculine skirt will always resemble a rectangle, square, or trapezoid.

​If there is draping, it's elongated and subtle. If there are gathers, they are similarly subtle -- there's never a bouffant effect at the hips. And if there are pleats, they are large and sharp, like kilt pleats.

 

Masculine skirts are typically low in detail. 

It seems clear to me  that humans all over the earth independently arrived at the same conclusion: straight lines and minimalism flatter masculine features. Interesting, isn't it? I believe this aesthetic response is hard-wired. 

Not sure of your style identity? Try the Style Identity Calculator, or consider a virtual analysis.