LONDON (Reuters) - David Beckham may have raised eyebrows sporting a sarong but fashion fans at London's Victoria and Albert Museum on Wednesday wouldn't have men wearing anything else.

Sweeping, strutting and sashaying through the V&A's ornate sculpture hall, seven male models brought fashion's most outre creations out from the display cabinet for the appraisal of ordinary people in the "Men in Skirts" catwalk show.

Whoops greeted a stately older gentleman with ice white hair entering the hall in an Ozwald Boateng navy pinstripe skirt suit with an acid green lining.

Camera bulbs flashed when two high-cheekboned male models wearing floor-length, hooded silk dresses by Maharishi nonchantly eased their way past naked Canova cherubs.

Vivienne Westwood-designed chintz and linen kilts followed Paul Smith's Union Jack sarong followed a Dolce & Gabbana cream cotton skirt with a matching loose-cut jumper.

But the star of the show was a confidently grinning model wearing a Jean Paul Gaultier black chiffon kaftan -- and dragon embroidered Y-fronts.

"This is fashion for the people," the V&A's fashion curator Suzanne Lussier told Reuters.

"Confidence, that's what you need," Paul Coleman, 36, said of the elusive quality required to be the man about town in a skirt.

"I've worn skirts on a hot day by the sea on a beach." Ed O'Connell, 37, said. "Some people threw insults. But who cares?"

Hamish Bicknell, in his fifties, gave up wearing trousers two years ago and hasn't looked back.

"I'm making a statement. It's for comfort and equality," he said. "If women can wear trousers, I can wear skirts."

21st century kilt designer Howie Nicholsby, who sent a fake leather kilt down the catwalk, has also eschewed trousers.

"Skirts are more comfortable, they're more manoeuvrable, they've got more sex appeal," he said.

And Beckham was still on some people's minds.

"Do you think it will take off?" Neilma Rowen, 68, said. "I was so angry when the media rubbished Beckham in his sarong...I thought he looked lovely."