Bravehearts: Men in Skirts
November 4, 2003–February 8, 2004
The Costume Institute, ground floor
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

Throughout the history of Western dress, women have frequently borrowed elements of men’s clothing. Examples of men appropriating women’s dress, however, are rare. Today, while women enjoy most of the advantages of a man’s wardrobe, men enjoy few of the advantages of a woman’s wardrobe. Nowhere is this asymmetry more apparent than in the taboo surrounding men in skirts. Bravehearts locates “men in skirts” in historical and cross-cultural contexts and looks at designers as well as individuals who have appropriated the skirt as a means of injecting novelty into male fashion, transgressing moral and social codes, and redefining ideals of masculinity.
The exhibition is sponsored by Jean Paul Gaultier.