'I thought I did look pretty damn cool,' reporter recalls

RAJU MUDHAR
STAFF REPORTER

Skirt chasing is a pastime that most men dutifully engage in. However, the idea of actually wearing a skirt is in the same category as Loreena Bobbit showing up at your front door wanting to demonstrate Ginsu knives.

The lines between masculinity and femininity are blurring. There are trend stories about men taking trips to spas, getting their hair dyed, and even wearing cosmetic products specifically for him. Much has been made of the label "metrosexual" -- the male equivalent of the Sex and the City crew -- but skirts remain anathema. No matter how many men primp, they're just not considered a fashion choice, other than dressing up for Halloween.

When my boss asked me to give some a test drive, I said sure.

As for rules of the test, I'd wear the skirts over two weeks and wouldn't be changing my schedule, so work, friends and family all got a chance to see them in action and judge. The idea would be to see how they felt on the streets of Toronto and to see if the city was ready for the man-skirt. I was prepared for the stares, the comments, changing how I sat and being more careful walking up and down stairs. I expected ó and did get ó a better understanding of women. But there was still a lot I didn't even think of.

The first skirt I got was a Dubuc. For those who don't know, Philippe Dubuc is one of Canada's premier fashion designers, with boutiques in Montreal and Yorkville. His skirt would look right at home on the runway. It was a very cool-looking charcoal-gray number. Its regular price of $245 had been marked down because it was from the spring 2003 collection.

Putting it on for the first time, I was confused. Unlike most sarongs, which simply wrap around the body, it (thankfully) had a belt, but as I was navigating it in a bathroom stall at work, it came unravelled. After some fiddling I figured it out. (Hey, in my defence, I bet a woman would have a problem figuring out how to put on a jockstrap for the first time).

At first it was a little too tight and I found myself restricting my gait as I walked. A little Sumo-like stretching and it loosened just fine.

On the street in my Dubuc, men seemed confused. They would size me up and down, and usually shake their heads. Women would check me out as well and some gave compliments, but for the most part, "Toronto the polite" remained so.

Friends and co-workers were a different story. Most took to heckling.

"Oh you've got a man-wrong," said my friend Vijay, when he saw me in it for the first time. "So wrong" was another favourite of the hecklers.

As for how it felt, really, it wasn't much different than a pair of baggy pants. I'll admit I was self-conscious, but after a while that passed. For some, clothes make the man, but for me, I've found the trick is to be comfortable in what you're wearing. People can tell.

And that's what I heard a lot.

"It looks good on you because you can pull it off."

There were still some issues with it. Something simple like going to the bathroom caused problems. Using a urinal was just fine: all I needed to do was pull it up or open. But the first time I had to sit on the throne, both my hands were busy holding up the long, flowing skirt and I wasn't sure what to do next.

My friend Emily gave me some advice: "You grab the skirt, bunch it up and put it over to one side. Then you have one hand free," she said, looking at me like the idiot I am.

My only defence was the same as Homer Simpson's when he accidentally commands a submarine into enemy waters: "It's my first day."

The next skirt I got was a proper sarong, borrowed from my friend Gavin. The sarong was nice and breezy, but there was one point, coming back from lunch, when it started to unravel. Luckily, I caught it before anyone noticed. As many women know, safety pins are your friend.

My natural habitat for the most part is bars, and I assumed that in such an environment, with proper libation and rambunctious spirits, reactions would be more polarized. Vijay and I went to My Apartment on Peter St. -- a meat market of the first order -- on a Thursday evening. Vijay hoped that he could use the skirt as his opening line of the evening, but despite our attempts, most of the girls were nonplussed.

"As long as you're comfortable, then it's fine," said one target.

"Actually, my boyfriend sort of wears one around the house," said Amy, a waitress at the bar.

I did notice some guys noticing, then making some jokes among themselves, but no fist fights ensued.

On another occasion, at the watering hole across the street from the Star, a bus person named Anis stopped me.

"Is that a lunghi?" he asked. (It's a type of Indian men's skirt.)

I told him no, but asked why he wanted to know.

"Well, I have three of them and I love to wear them, but whenever I try to wear them out, my friends make fun of me and say that I'm fresh off the boat," he said.

Anis is a Bengali and comes from a culture where the man-skirt is part of everyday fashion. Since Anis and I are the same skin colour, I cannot tell you how many times I was told that the reason the skirt looked fine on me was because of my ethnicity. I don't even want to get into how much of a backhanded compliment that was. Does that mean I could wear a pineapple on my head and nobody would say boo?

So to combat the ethnicity argument, I went out and got a kilt from Richardson's Tartan Shop on Yonge St., near Lawrence Ave. There was no question about how manly this was. It came with a sword pin to weigh it down, and with my rental I got a fake skean dhu, the traditional knife that comes along with it. Once again, I got a few compliments from women, but this time men were more accepting, though there were still a few stares.

If there is a drawback to skirts, it's practicality. This experience made me think about my clothes. Generally speaking, most men figure out what to wear in the morning and then really don't think about it for the rest of the day. The most you have to do after you get dressed is to occasionally check your fly. With a skirt, that's not really possible. You have to adjust it whenever you sit down, or if it opens at the wrong time.

At the end of the day, I thought I did look pretty damn cool in the skirts. The stares were easy enough to get used to, and one benefit is that it does become a talking point with women, so it does work as an icebreaker.

As well, women love confident men, and if you can wear a skirt, it's obvious you've got some.