Frocky horror

Writing in today’s Guardian, Hardeep Singh Kohli reckons it’s high time men abandoned their trews in favour of skirts.

Why is it so very wrong for a slightly overweight Glaswegian Sikh to wear a retro-kitsch Diane von Furstenberg wraparound dress? Or perhaps an Etro skirt in a marled russet wool-and-cashmere mix with brocade detailing, cut on the bias just above the knee?

I’m surprised that, as a Scot, Hardeep equates kilts with skirts in the same article – that’s asking for the Scots equivalent of the drive-by shooting, the drive-by mooning – but I suspect there’s a bigger flaw in his plan. It would need re-education of the entire male population – not in understanding fashion, but in learning how to sit.

The thing is, unless men are also going to adopt hosiery then things could get very scary very quickly – not for us, but for the people around us. It’s something I learnt at a friend’s wedding: I was the best man, and because the groom wore a kilt I had to do the same. What I didn’t realise until I got the psychiatric bills was that, because I was unfamiliar with the right way to sit while kilted, the registrar spent the whole wedding ceremony with an unimpeded view of my bollocks.


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0 responses to “Frocky horror”

  1. Strangely enough, I was talking to an ex-nurse friend of mine yesterday about trying to campaign for male nurses being allowed to wear dresses. He reckoned this was a better option than letting the female staff wear trousers. He didn’t really get very far with it.

  2. Ms Mac

    Like Tony, strangely enough, I was only just talking about men in skirts with a Swiss friend last week. She thinks of me highly enough to be her go-to person on all things Scottish and asked if it was true about what Scotsmen wear under their kilts, having previously only been exposed to Scottish culture via Swiss Funniest Home Vidoes. I shall direct her to this post for verification.

  3. mupwangle

    I prefer pants due to chaffing. I do live in England now though.

  4. Gary

    Like Tony, strangely enough, I was only just talking about men in skirts

    And the anti-spam word appearing on screen is “pants”. Hardeep is clearly surfing the zeitgeist!

  5. mupwangle

    >>Hardeep is clearly surfing the zeitgeist!

    Which is definately something you shouldn’t do without pants.

    Incidentally – waddle is the spam word now.

  6. Gary

    The spam catcher is clearly developing intelligence. It says “bees” now. You definitely don’t want them up your kilt.

  7. mupwangle

    Spatula – A device for removing bees from under your kilt.

  8. mupwangle

    Jam – for attracting bees to your kilt-region.

  9. Is it a coincidence that the word is now ‘spleen’?

    And what do traffic wardens have to do with men wearing skirts?

    I think we should be told.

  10. tm

    >I prefer pants due to chaffing.

    Well if the kilts your own you need to sew a peice of cloth inside in the right place to stop that. And if it’s not your own kilt, well, I prefer pants for other reasons…

  11. Ben

    Word is now “eek”, at least we know how the registrar felt.

    The last time I wore a kilt, the man in the kilt shop gave me a lesson on such thing, “we don’t want to show ourselves off, do we?” was his line. And I wasn’t allowed to be a true scotman, as he’s just handmade that kilt..

  12. Gary

    Rental kilt – underwear = a bad idea, or so I’m told. You’ve no way of knowing whether the last renter was Hygienic Harry or Leprous Larry…

  13. Gary

    Well if the kilts your own you need to sew a peice of cloth inside in the right place to stop that.

    If you get it made the front is usually lined in a different (ie, not scratchy wool) material.