HEMLINES & HEARTLINES: HOW MUSIC IS UNRAVELLING TOXIC MASCULINITY ONE SKIRT AT A TIME

So throughout the length of the weekend and, indeed, the week, Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil and Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten stood onstage wearing their kilts. Or, to anyone with a degree in fashion, business attire with an office of public relations. And as the lynch mob brayed and the lights intensified, offstage somewhere the stifled susurration of toxically indignant masculinity wringing its hands could be heard.

Yes, kilts are traditional in Scotland, absolutely. But when people argue that kilts don’t challenge gender norms because they’re culturally accepted, they miss the point. The resistance isn’t in the garment alone it’s in the refusal to conform to the narrow expectations of masculinity. A man in a dress, a skirt, or even a kilt outside its heritage context? That’s not just fashion it’s friction.

It’s not new. It’s not radical. It’s not even very surprising unless, that is, you are stuck in 1998, the year that David Beckham sashayed down the sarong and the British newspapers tutted as if he’d himself burnt the Union Jack at the stake. “Beckham has got his Posh frock on,” tutted the newspapers, as if the width of fabric ‘round the waist was an affront to the nation. Beckham, to the best of his efforts, stood firm. “Sarongs are great,” he insisted years later. “One thing I never regret, that is.” But still, the outrage did take hold. Good Lord forbid the man look comfortable.

Now look, if you are Scottish or a person on the Internet who might embrace self-expression with open arms and a instagram reel tutorial this may not be frowned upon, but round here in Yorkshire, things are a bit different… Local lads, defenders of the sacred cargo pant tradition, might erupt in a fit of existential confusion, clutching their lagers as if tartan were contagious. “First it was oat milk, now this?” one sobbed, as society crumbled under the weight of expressive textiles.

Chatten’s kilted Finsbury Park performance was fashion, yes, but fashion and something else protest, too. He wore it as he sang along with the crowds to the chant of “Free Palestine,” with lights behind blasting the words “Israel is committing genocide. Use your voice.” Simon Neil has, meanwhile, long used the wearing of kilts and tartan as part of the look of Biffy, heritage, emotional vulnerability, and the type of on-stage physicality that figures as if the person’s punched and cuddled the very same instant.

Jack Jones, frontman of Trampolene, has never shied away from twisting tradition onstage, he’s been known to wear a skirt during performances, pairing it with a football shirt in a sartorial collision of soft rebellion and cultural defiance. It’s a look that ruffles sensibilities in places still clinging to outdated notions of masculinity, yet feels right at home in the lineage of punk aesthetics and poetic unrest that Trampolene channels with guts and grace.

And yet the very same cruddy, outdated commentary persists. Same “but what does it mean?” handwringing. Same “in any way is this somehow a threat to masculinity?” malarkey. I’m neck-deep in writing the thing and the poisonous, outdated masculinity baggage that still adheres to it like it has any business sitting at the table because, still, somehow, man in skirt is still the very, very height of freakish novelty. Still inflammatory? Still something that is and must be defined, defended, or mocked?

But let’s be honest it’s not the skirt that’s the threat. It’s that a skirt is seen as something a woman wears, and in certain men’s minds, womanhood is still mistaken for weakness. The irony? Men have worn skirts for centuries: Roman tunics, Japanese hakama, Scottish kilts. It’s the pant, not the skirt, that stitched a mythology of masculinity from discomfort and denim. Western fashion narrowed its scope, misread the symbol, and built manhood out of resistance to flow and fabric.

But the skirt has always put teeth into music. David Bowie donned dresses to take the range of self-definition one step further. Young Thug swaggered in a crumpled dress and bellowed “there’s no such thing as gender.” Kurt Cobain didn’t merely wear dresses he strutted in them. Wearing florals and hand-me-down dresses, he defied the hardboiled template of rock stardom, having once declared, “There’s nothing more comfortable than a cosy flower pattern. It just feels comfortable, sexy and free.”

Stars today don’t merely strut runways with skirts upon them they strut with armed skirts. Simone Rocha-dressed Grian Chatten struts down the runway, making the weak strong. Kid Cudi pays homage to Cobain with an off-white floral dress on Saturday Night Live. Fashion mags and music videos see K-poppers such as Yeonjun and Hongjoong wearing their skirts, and gender-fluid fashion becomes the world runways’ standard.

And then there’s Biffy Clyro. Simon Neil’s not merely wearing the kilts he’s wearing their soul on their sleeve during the concert. Shirtless, wailing, tears, and talkin’ freely about mental health. “Sharing is what’s going to get us all through,” he’s said in interview, breaking the silence toxic masculinity insists on. Fans the Biffy Club have taken it in their stride. They turn out in tartan, in mini-skirts, in whatever makes ’em raw and alive. Kilts are a celebration of heritage and something else: party in the service of fluidity, solidarity, and the magic of showing up as yourself.

I think what’s scary for me is men shaming other men or, in this case, a rather innocuous article of clothing, reads less as personal discomfort and more as a practiced defense of strict norms. It reveals how far the indoctrination goes, particularly when it comes to masculinity. It’s not the dress, the skirt, that’s the threat, but the freedom that it suggests. The notion that softness, self-expression, or straying from gendered expectations must be penalised illustrates how the system is policed from within.And it’s usually couched in fake concern or “just joking” inflections, but the subtext is control. Think about what masculinity might be without those limits more fluid, more compassionate, not afraid of colour or vulnerability.

So yes, men wear skirts. Again. Still. And with each iteration, somebody somewhere grips their masculinity more tightly as if it is something that is to be handled in dazed protection, but the stage is unaware, the music is unaware, and the wearers most certainly don’t care. Sadly, the freedom is the problem, and the hemline is not.

Trampolene Picture – Pirate Treasures

Fontaines DC Grian Gratten – Poonehghana