Nice bit of skirt

"A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor a man wear women's clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this." Heaven knows what the Old Testament scribe who penned this statement in Deuteronomy would make of a forthcoming exhibition at the V&A devoted to men in skirts.

The museum's fashion and textile department has assembled work by a veritable A-list of designers, including Paul Smith, Yohji Yamamoto, Vivienne Westwood and, of course, Jean Paul Gaultier. Collectively, the fashion on display will once again pose the old question, asked of blokes as illustrious as the "dancing Marquis" of Anglesey (who blew his inheritance on jewels and cross-dressing), and as artless (or daft) as the sarong-sporting David Beckham: should men wear skirts?

"Yes," says the fashion historian Colin McDowell, author of A Man of Fashion, firmly. "You only have to look at a highland soldier in a kilt; flat stomach, good legs. It's a marvellous look, yet very masculine." The people behind the International Male Fashion Freedom network, a website based in America, are even more adamant. "Men have spent the past 300 years losing their fashion freedom," their website shrieks. "We used to wear tights, cloaks, robes, togas, kilts and skirts. Women won their right to fashion freedom because they fought for it. Now is the time for men to do the same."

They have a point: after all, we spent centuries frolicking happily in doublet and hose. From the Merovingians, with their knee-length gonelles (tunics), to the minis favoured in Early Renaissance Florence (so skimpy, a codpiece was essential), to Charles II's above-the-knee Persian "vests", all freed their wearers from today's trouser-tyranny of restricted movement and poor ventilation.

Reason enough, you would think, for the male skirt to be flying off the shelves. But McDowell has his doubts. "Firstly, that look was killed off because men discovered they could expose their legs - which was the whole point - in tight trousers. And the sort of man attracted now to a skirt tends to be the weedy, feminine type, which is the kiss of death. What we need are real men, big, butch builders, wearing them. That might give the concept a chance." He isn't holding his breath. "Men are more frightened of what other men think than of what women would say," he contends. "They're worried they'll get stoned in the streets."

There doesn't seem to be any way round this, however much designers such as Gaultier and kilts-with-a-twist mavericks such as Howie R Nicholsby and Steven Villegas talk up the idea. And the kilt is one thing, the skirt, surely, quite another. Granted, the former is merely a Scottish variant of the latter, but its connotations - the Black Watch, Mel Gibson, the enduring mystery of "what lies beneath" - are about power (and titillation), whereas those attached to the everyday skirt are invariably concerned with comments on your sexuality and knobbly knees.

McDowell despairs of this narrow-mindedness. "Gaultier once said to me, 'Saying men can't wear skirts is as silly as saying women can't eat spinach'. But the trouble is, if you start wearing skirts, people think: what next?" If McDowell is resigned, Judy Tregidden of the Costume Society is scathing about the furore that surrounds the subject. "What I find truly bizarre," she points out, "is that in the most conventional areas of society - the church and the Army - skirts and dresses are still being worn."

The question is: can the male skirt move out of these pukka but essentially niche markets? All bids to revive the look have foundered in a sea of camp and ridicule. In that sense, the V&A show will serve merely as a record of successive failed attempts to bring back a garment that British men, most of whom remain deeply conservative about fashion, still believe has no place on a male body. And that's just how the bloke from Deuteronomy would have wanted things to stay.

Men in Skirts, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, SW7, from 8 February to 12 May.

The exhibition's curator, Andrew Bolton, explores the phenomenon of men in skirts as part of a day of related events at the V&A on 14 April, hosted by the Costume Society. Call 020 7942 2000 for details.

© Associated Newspapers Ltd., 21 January 2002