If you spend enough time around a little kid, you’re likely to hear all sorts of questions about the world and everyday life. They’re usually in pretty quick succession so it can get a little tiring to answer so many at once.
Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t find ourselves realizing that we don’t really an answer to some of them. At least not one that satisfies their curiosity any more than it does ours. And increasingly, one of those questions without a satisfying answer is, “Why do boys and girls wear different clothes?”
Because other than “some people decided a long time ago that that’s how it should be and we’ve just been following their lead,” there really isn’t any reason why people can’t wear clothes they’re “not supposed to.”
That’s clearly the conclusion that one husband and father has come to, and he challenges the old idea behind “gendered” clothes every day.
Mark Bryan is a robotics engineer who was born in the United States but now lives in Germany with his wife of 11 years, his son and his two daughters.
As he told Bored Panda, some of his hobbies include serving as head coach of a football team and restoring his 1967 Porsche 911.
If you were to visit his Instagram page, you’d quickly notice that most of his posts have a similar caption.
They start differently but tend to end with, “I am just a normal, happily married, straight guy that loves Porsche’s, beautiful women, and likes to incorporate a skirt and heels into his daily wardrobe. Clothes and shoes should have no gender.”
He said that he started wearing the pieces when an old college girlfriend wanted to dance with him as they both wore the shoes. This was something they often did, so he became pretty comfortable moving in them and has worn them off and on ever since.
In the last five years, he started incorporating skirts into his wardrobe because they complemented the heels better than pants.
Bryan prefers to wear clothing traditionally associated with men from the waist up and his trademark skirts and heels below the waist.
As he told Bored Panda,
“I dress like this because I can. Just to be different. I have always admired the women that wore tight skirts and heels. Not sexually, but the power they presented. I don’t dress to be sexual, but to dress like any professional woman would. To me, clothes have no gender.”
Although Bryan likes skirts, dresses don’t really work for him because they don’t give him as much room to mix styles.
Indeed, having a wide range of fashion options is a big part of the appeal to his wardrobe.
As he said, “With men’s pants, you have just a few color options: black, gray, navy, and brown, and no pants with prints. With skirts, you can add reds, green, brighter blues, floral prints, animal prints, etc. Same with shoes, but then you also have many more styles and heel types.”
Bryan has said that women between the ages of 30 and 40 tend to compliment his style while men are more inclined to make comments and ask questions.
But no matter how others react to Bryan’s appearance, he knows he has the support of his family.
As he said, “My wife often makes suggestions on what I should wear. My daughter wishes she could borrow my shoes at times.”
Bryan has been able to go to work and out on the town in his preferred style comfortably. Still, it’s clear that his advice for other men who are interested in skirts and heels of their own comes from experience.
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As he put it, “You cannot be afraid. Some people are like animals, they attack the weak. Show confidence and show the world you are not afraid and nobody will bother you.”
h/t: Bored Panda
