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Robert Pattinson is getting adventurous. Take for instance his GQ cover back in March 2022. He dyed his hair a peroxide blonde. He clamped a set of grills to his teeth. He did his thing in suits painted satsuma and lime. It spelt a new era of fresh fits for The Batman actor. A metamorphosis. Following that we saw him in massive coats that cloaked his lithe frame, Dark Knight-style, and he even made a case for XXL cargo shorts. Sure, not totally out of the box, but not the sort of thing you'd expect one of the world's most in-demand actors.
Now the British star has taken things up another level. Attending the Dior show in Paris (he's the frontman of the brand) he stole the gazes of fashion editors, TikTokers and the 16th arrondissement's top spenders alike, when he turned up in a fuzzy, chocolate brown fleece and a blue tweed swishy skirt. A skirt you say! Comprising shorts and a skirt frontage (call it a skort, sure) it was, to be frank, one of the boldest garments he's worn to date.
Now, while it's R-Patz' first time in a skirt, it must be noted that he isn't the first male celebrity to get to grips with the leg-flashing garment historically associated with womenswear. Kurt Cobain was at it in the Nineties, Vin Diesel sported a leather skirt to the MTV Europe Music Awards in Edinburgh in 2003 (yep, tough guys go hard on skirts too), while Gerard Butler has been known to wear them on more than one occasion and in more than one style – pleated, leather, tartan, he's done it all.
But Pattinson's skirty move is indicative of a new wave of masc men getting to grips with their more feminine sides, signalling a new era for the dude skirt. Pete Davidson is one of those guys, sporting one to the Met Gala. A$AP Rocky gets his from Givenchy. Oscar Isaac is an advocate for a pleated Thom Browne number, while Kid Cudi got Twitter talking when he turned up to a New York City gallery opening in a black chiffon skirt. “Come out already,” one user homophobically quipped.
But slurs aside, the skirt is now speaking to a lot more men, and it's nothing to do with their sexuality. Rather than a denotation of queerness, it's a new norm. Call it unisex equality. Call it, almost, mundane! Take for instance the men's Autumn/Winter 2023 shows currently taking place in Europe. Skirts are the running thread. Martine Rose set the wheels in motion when she guest-closed Pitti Uomo with a catwalk collection brimming with men in denim, floor-length skirts. British designer Charles Jeffrey Loverboy sent male models walking in tartan kilts and wraparound felt skirts, Etro's man favoured long-length tartan skirts that were worn with oversized rugby shirts, while at Gucci (which has been pushing skirts and gowns for men since 2015) side-split skirts were worn with polo shirts. And indeed, Pattinson's skirt is a carbon copy of one of the pieces seen on the Dior catwalk – Kim Jones, the messianic creative director of Dior Men's sent more than ten of his models strutting down the catwalk in calf-grazing skirts.
You might think wearing a skirt is a grey area, but Pattinson in a skirt ain't that big a deal.
