This week, Hollywood heartthrob Brad Pitt showed it’s not just Millenials who can get away with challenging gender fashion roles when he wore a skirt to the Berlin premiere of his latest movie Bullet Train.
When asked on the red carpet why he chose to wear a skirt, the 58-year-old simply said: “The breeze. The breeze.”
Brad has hinted before at wanting men to feel more comfortable in skirts telling fashion in 2004: “Men will be wearing skirts by next summer. That’s my prediction and proclamation.”
Brad was promoting his film Troy at the time and wearing the garments of the period had obviously sparked something in him.
“The film answers to both genders. We were going for realism and Greeks wore skirts all the time then,” he said.
Brad is not the first man in Hollywood to wear a skirt though.
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In 1998, at the height of his footballing career and just after getting engaged to Posh Spice Victoria, David Beckham was mocked for wearing a sarong.
“Sarongs are great. That’s one thing I never regret because I thought it looked great and I would still wear it now,” he told ITV in 2014.
In fact, some of the most fashion-forward men have shown just how good a guy can look when they wear what they want instead of what they should!
Harry Styles
Former boy band member, singer, actor and model Harry Styles doesn’t have time for what people want him to be as he is too busy being himself.
“As a kid I definitely liked fancy dress,” he told Vogue.
In a school play, he was cast as a church mouse, “I was really young, and I wore tights for that,” he recalls, “I remember it was crazy to me that I was wearing a pair of tights. And that was maybe where it all kicked off!
“There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes. I’ve never thought too much about what it means—it just becomes this extended part of creating something”
Nico Tortorella
The star was all tattoos and Gen Y sexuality as Josh in the TV series younger, but Nico is in an open polyamorous relationship with American lifestyle entrepreneur Bethany Meyers and they each consider themselves gender fluid.
“I never labeled myself as sexually fluid,” Nico told vulture magazine. “I like emotionally fluid more than sexually fluid.
“I am the Future Man.”
And maybe they are!
Vin Diesel
He plays tough guy Dominic in the Fast&Furious franchise but that doesn’t mean Vin is afraid of the breeze.
The action hero rocked a leather skirt at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2003.
This was probably him paying homage to Scotland’s national dress given the event was held in Edinburgh, but the leather twist on the kilt definitely blurred some lines.
Jaden Smith
The eldest child of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, Jaden, has been given more freedom than many children of his age.
And fashion is one area in which Jaden chooses to express himself.
In fact at just 18, Jaden was the first male model to model women’s wear for the French label Louis Vuitton.
“If I Wanna Wear A Dress, Then I Will, And That Will Set The New Wave.” I tweeted in 2018.
Peter Davidson
Actor and Saturday night Live alum Pete Davidson may be dating a Kardashian but he’s not afraid of pushing stereotypes when it comes to what he wears.
“I’m excited for how easy it is to pee. You can literally just lift it up,” he told GQ magazine about wearing a tunic to the 2021 Met Gala.
“If you’re gonna wear a dress, what better way or place to do it than the Met, do you know?” he added, “I’m really excited and really stoked that they thought I could pull this off, which is hilarious.”
Jared Leto
He’s dated some of the hottest actresses in Hollywood including Cameron Diaz, Scarlett Johansson, Lupita Nyong’o, Katy Perry and even our very own Isabel Lucas, but actor Jared Leto has never been afraid of wearing a skirt.
“Real men wear skirts,” he tweeted back in 2010:
eddie izzard
British actor and comedian Eddie Izzard, known for playing Roman in Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen and Peter Solomon in Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol TV series but in his personal life, Eddie is comfortable with who she is.
“I wear whatever I want whenever I want. I don’t call it drag; I don’t even call it cross-dressing. It’s just wearing a dress,” Eddie declared to Interview magazine in 2014.
Eddie has since come out as gender fluid and says she’d prefer to be known by female pronouns.
billy porter
Pose actor Billy Porter has loved playing with fashion stereotypes over the years.
“I used to get frustrated that women could wear whatever they wanted and men had to show up in the same penguin suit,” he says.
“My goal is to be a walking piece of political art every time I show up. To challenge expectations. What is masculinity? What does that mean? Women show up every day in pants, but the minute a man wears a dress, the seas part,” he told fashion in 2019.
“I’m not a drag queen, I’m a man in a dress,” he added.
Let’s hope one day people can just wear whatever they like and not have fashion labeled for one particular gender or the other.
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