AI-generated man wearing two different skirts to a garden fair
April 7, 2024

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about about meeting my elderly neighbor while wearing a skirt. In the post, I mentioned that I wore a green “work” skirt whose appearance is overall pretty masculine and I included an older photo of me wearing it. It has a solid color, is made of rough material, and doesn’t flow.

In the post, I commented that wearing this more “masculine” skirt probably affected my elderly neighbor’s reaction in that he likely didn’t react as strongly as he might have if I had been wearing a more “feminine” skirt with a floral pattern that was more flowy. This caused a lot of discussion in the comments, so I decided to perform a little experiment.

The Experiment

Near the town where I live in Southern Germany, there was a large garden fair that took place over Easter weekend. My wife wanted to go, so I decided to take advantage of it to gauge people’s reactions to a man wearing different types of skirts.

The idea was simple: go to the garden fair on two different days and wear a more “masculine” skirt on the first day and a more “feminine” one on the second day. My skirts of choice for this bit of fun were my blue work skirt from Engelbert-Strauss for the first day and my red A-line skirt from Anna Field for the second. I paired both with black, cotton leggings and flat, low-ankle, Converse-style shoes.

The AI-generated picture above doesn’t accurately represent what I wore but rather is more symbolic of my intended contrast between the two skirts.

Day 1

The first day wearing my blue work skirt went off without a hitch. We drove to the garden fair, walked around pushing our son in his stroller, ate some good food and chatted with the occasional person at the stands.

My skirt was not mentioned once. Some people looked briefly, but probably not any more than if I’d been wearing jeans. Given, my baby son gets most of the adults’ attention when we’re out, but even when he wasn’t the center of attention or even with me, my skirt bothered absolutely no one.

People behaved entirely the same as if I had been wearing jeans or work pants. They talked to me respectfully and were just as friendly as you would expect. My skirt played absolutely no role and I have to admit that I went home slightly disappointed that no one had engaged with it.

Day 2

The second day was much more interesting than the first. It got off to a great start as an unexpected factor threw a wrench in the works. One of our elderly neighbors from another house asked if she could join us. My plan was to wear my red A-line skirt which, while it’s a solid color, has a more “feminine” cut in that it’s shorter, brighter, and flows nicely.

I wore the skirt anyway, but the first thing my neighbor did when she saw me was ask if I was really going to wear a skirt to the fair. She has seen me in skirts around the house and our property and has never commented on them before, but she wasn’t comfortable with being seen with me in one in public. Day two was off to a great start.

Since I was going to wear it anyway, we made a deal (which itself was already ridiculous). I was to exit the car first and basically attend the garden fair by myself while my wife and son would walk around with her. We wouldn’t pretend not to know each other and could stop and chat if we came across each other at the fair, but she wouldn’t have to officially be part of a party that included a skirt-wearing man. It was utterly absurd, but whatever.

That wasn’t the only incident, however. The rest of the day once we were at the fair went quite differently than the first one. I actually got comments about the skirt and it seems to have piqued a lot of people’s curiosity. Keep in mind, I didn’t get any whatsoever on day one, so the fact that people were commenting was very surprising.

I won’t go into detail about each and every encounter, but I can say two things with certainty: it was entirely positive and only women said anything. Here are a few examples:

One of the women working one of the stalls complimented my courage for wearing it and said it looked good. Another one from a different stall said that she had seen me in my skirt the day before. Apparently, she had been too afraid to say anything about it, but since I was there again in a different skirt, it seemed like I wanted to make a statement. She complimented me on it saying that more people need to be bold like that. Another woman who was a visitor said it was a gorgeous skirt and asked where I got it. And yet another, younger lady said it was “refreshing” to see a man wearing something radically different.

Essentially, it boils down to a bunch of compliments about it looking good and me having the courage to wear it. I think that is especially true in a rural, conservative area where men’s fashion tends to only vary by the color of the checkers they have on their shirts.

The day ended with my wife calling me saying they were ready to go home. I then absurdly had to go, get in the car first and then the others followed several minutes later. Overall, I had a good time despite the neighbor.

Conclusion

The results of the experiment are, I think, pretty clear. Ignoring my neighbor’s attitude entirely, wearing the more “femininely” cut skirt definitely garnered more attention. I got absolutely no comments or even really any noticeable looks with the work skirt on the first day, but received several on the second day with the red A-line skirt.

Perhaps it was because people recognized me from the first day wearing the more “masculine” skirt? Or maybe it was just more eye-catching since its flowiness (is that even a word?) means it moves a lot more. It could also have been the fact that it was red rather than blue, although it was more of a maroon than a bright red. Or maybe it was just because my son wasn’t with me to distract the adults.

I don’t know exactly, but I do know I had a blast with this experiment. I think I might try a similar experiment in the future, but will reverse it by wearing the more “feminine” skirt first. I could also play around with colors to see if, for example, wearing my black A-line skirt would attract less attention than the red one.

Obviously, there are so many factors that would influence what happened that it’s impossible to come to a definitive conclusion. I can, however, say the following: most people just don’t care or are even encouraging. That is as long as they aren’t a grumpy neighbor who doesn’t want to be seen with you in public.

What are your experiences wearing different types of skirts in public or even in private? Have there been different reactions? What were those reactions? Let us know in the comments below!

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About the Author

Alex Seifert
In many ways, Alex is a typical man who just so happens to enjoy wearing skirts and high heels. He is married to a wonderful, supportive wife and has a young son. His hobbies include reading, programming, metal music, playing instruments, video games, cars, hiking and a number of other smaller things.

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