Skirts Books

Andrew Bolton's BRAVEHEARTS: MEN IN SKIRTS is an over sized fashion book filled with color and black & white pictures of men in everything from skirts to sarongs.

It provides some detail about the history of men wearing skirts from different cultures and throughout time. It covers all forms of skirts from kilts to sarongs to kimonos to straight skirts and robes. And it shows many designers who have been pushing the envelope like Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, Cavalli, Thierry Mugler etc.

No only are some of the pictures from the past, like the 60s and 70s, but many are from the 90s and 2000s, so they are pretty current.

The looks are very cool and surprisingly some are very masculine. Not easy to pull off when the skirt qualifies as a "mini" if it were on a woman. I recommend the book to all those interested in fashion and for those who go against the grain.

re: bravehearts/men in skirts - andrew bolton

i've just received my copy of bravehearts/men in skirts - believing myself to be one of the first to do so - prior to it's appearance on bookshelves.

the format - although interesting is an awkward one that does not quite fit most bookshelves.

the contents and photographs are well presented although i would have liked to have seen many more - specifically showing the male skirt as it's worn by many ethnic cultures the world over.

the first set of ommissions were those of many east europeasn countries that wear skirts in various forms - from the greek, turk and syrian honour guards along with the dresses worn by the swirling dervishes - followers of sufiism.

west africa alone has many differing designs - based on religion, culture and status with just as many differeng names. throughout the rest of africa many more different versions - mostly traditionally african - depending upon ethnicity can be found. we cannot discount the fearsome zulu impi (warriors) in their antelope or monkey hide skirts. again,more colourful ones depected royalty. many of these are intrinsic to their (african's) existence - long before the days of colonialism and finer cloth options. it was largely due to the arab merchamts that various forms of islamic dress made it's mark upon mombassa, dar-es-salaam zanzibar and northern moçambique.

even within india do we find many differing styles - many designs and colours based upon status. the sarongs of nepal, tibet, thailand, burma/mayanar, indonsesia and malaysia too have their own characteristics.

what about the indigenous peoples from the world over, viz. polynesian islanders; the maori, fiji, samoa, borneo and hawaii to name but a few? it is not enough to merely mention them but share their views on westerners co-opting their national dress and treating it as mere fashion fads.

the origin of the kilt too is misleading, as it is believed to have been brought down by the vikings who had their own name for it. contrary to popular belief, it was the english who first took it on - later to be heralded by the scots as their national form of dress. today many of them consider all other kilt wearers throughout the british isles as possuers ...

herein lies another omission, that being the kilt is held in equal reverence in both wales and ireland - not only by english royalty such as king george and the prince of wales as so many erroniously assume.

yes indeed, i would like to se an updated - expanded version od this fine publication in two to five years from now.

owen r. greenland - of welsh extraction
aka sharif - associated with indians by religion
aka mshengu - born and raised in kwazulu-natal, south africa; connected to africa and it's people by cutural and political affiliation

The men in skirts theme is one long overdue. I hope Bolton did all right in $$ with this one as that would encourage other writers to address this same theme. Any folks that read this and wonder about the subject could visit www.tom's cafe.org to join skirt wearing men or read their posts from around the world. As the women have taken over nearly every clothing item traditionally male as their own, why don't men do the same? At least with skirts/dresses? Both skirts and dresses are far better suited for male plumbing much better than they are for female plumbing of lack of it. Pants work perfectly on a female so I'm not surprised that they have taken them over. A sharp cloth edge in a mans genitalia hurts, but no such problem exists for a woman. After all, few men today ride horses and therefore don't need to wear bifurcated clothing at all unless they are on a Motorcycle.

Written for a middle school audience, this book handles the subject of a girl/woman masquerading as a man with the finesse necessary when addressing this age group. However, the story of Jennie/Albert is just as fascinating for an adult. I read the book as I am interested in the history of women who play roles very different from expectations. The factual portion of the story alone would have held my interest, but a younger audience raised in the 30 second segment world of Sesame Street needs more to keep them reading.

The fictionalized relationship Albert develops with a fellow soldier serves to inform the reader that Albert's true identity was probably known to some of his comrades, but didn't matter as he held his own under very difficult circumstances. The previous review questions the lack of answers to some philosophical questions such as why poor Southern whites fought in a war that would benefit them little. We need to remember that this book is about Jennie/Albert, written from his perspective. Placed in a situation and locale that defies reason, Albert would have been very confused with no one to explain the economic and social issues involved in this war. He joined to escape an uncomfortable situation (his employer wishing to bring him into the family as a son-in-law) and make money. This is what is interesting to middle schoolers. As for nature's call along the march as well as bathing, the author does deal with these issues. The old adage "truth is stranger than fiction" comes to mind here and probably accounts for Albert's ability to handle these situations without being discovered.

The book is primarily about Jennie/Albert's role as a soldier in the Civil War. We need the early history to understand how and why she got to the United States, left her job in New York, eventually ended up in Illinois and finally enlisted. The book could have ended with the end of the war, but we - kids and adults - have a natural curiosity about the whole life of unique individuals like Jennie. The other reviewer states "Another thing I couldn't quite figure out was why Jennie was so determined to remain disguised as a boy her entire life. Durrant gives us two possible answers: Jennie wasn't a fan of the restrictive nature of female clothing and she felt that as a boy she could make more money. I'm willing to believe all of that, of course, but once Jennie grows old and is living a truly sad life as a safety-obsessed old man, the reader is left baffled. Why do that?" Well, this is probably historically accurate, and as in all life, there just is no explanation. Middle schoolers unless very unusual are more apt to read without questioning. Jennie/Albert's life after the war until death was strange, but no more bizarre than many of those we read about in the paper.

In all, I think this is a fascinating, well-written work that will hold the attention of those for which it was written. History can be a difficult subject to teach to middle school students who see little value in learning about the past. Durrant manages to tell us much about the conditions that brought immigrants to our shores as well as depicting realistically one of the most important periods of our history. Through the vehicle of historical fiction, Durrant has written a book that conveys true events to a middle school audience in a manner that will keep kids reading and learning until the end of the book. And adults just might find it interesting, too!

nce you've read enough children's books where a girl disguises herself as a boy you begin to understand the standard tropes of the genre. The moment when they have to bind their newly growing breasts. The moment when they have to deal with their period. Usually these stories are fantastical in some respect. Almost never are they based on real life historical figures, and even more rarely are they fictionalized real-life stories. But there are exceptions to every rule and "My Last Skirt" is certainly one of these. Taking the rather fantastic story of real-life Civil War soldier and transvestite Albert Cashier nee Jennie Hodgers, the story follows Jennie from Irish sheepherder, New York cashier, soldier, old man, and, finally, old woman. And though I may have some quibbles with how author Lynda Durrant chose to present some of her information, there's no denying the inherent interest in Cashier's tale.

It just made good plain sense to Jennie from the start. Boys make more money than girls and Jennie has a boyish face. Put a pair of pants on her and she makes a more than convincing boy. This works well enough when she's tending sheep in her native Ireland, but it's even more effective when she and her brother Tom cross the Atlantic sea to start a new life in New York. A tiff between the two leads to Jennie, now known as Albert, to lead a life of her own. Soon enough she joins up with the 95th Illinois Infantry to fight for the Union in the Civil War. Told through Albert's battles and final late-in-life discovery of her sex, Durrant tracks the life of a women who decided to live her life the way she always wanted to.

Durrant often thinks of things that some wouldn't when writing a book of this sort. While in the army, for example, Jennie stops having her period because of the lack of nutrition and the extreme physical activity. Left unexplained is how Jennie goes about going to the bathroom while in the army. Especially while on the march. That must've took some doing, but it's left unexplained. Still, there's quite a nice Afterword and good Bibliography at the end of the novel. This is a title that has been well researched. The sheer number of facts that would threaten to overwhelm the unprepared author are organized and adeptly fictionalized by Durrant.

There were some odd gaps here and there. Oddly, the book leaves unexplained the impetus of poor Southern whites to fight in the war. Over and over again Jennie wonders why the Southerners fight. The only answer she ever receives is a somewhat vague reference to the fact that the Northerners came down so they had to be fought. Readers with any Southern pride will probably chafe at how they're presented in this book time and time again. Between Arthur justifying the wanton pillage of the South, feeding the victims of the Vicksburg siege and leaving before they can "thank" them, the book never shows the alternate point of view. Kids reading it may end up just as baffled by the end as Jennie herself. There was also the adoption of some slave runaways who join with the infantry. One of them, a fellow by the name of Euripedes, is promoted, in the course of the tale, to Sergeant. Did this happen? Slaves would join with the Union army and get promoted over the white soldiers? When I asked this question of some librarians who thoroughly enjoyed this book, they said that Euripedes didn't receive his promotion until after his death. Yet the book clearly states during the fighting that Euripedes is currently a Sergeant. Confusing.

Another thing I couldn't quite figure out was why Jennie was so determined to remain disguised as a boy her entire life. Durrant gives us two possible answers: Jennie wasn't a fan of the restrictive nature of female clothing and she felt that as a boy she could make more money. I'm willing to believe all of that, of course, but once Jennie grows old and is living a truly sad life as a safety-obsessed old man, the reader is left baffled. Why do that? This Jennie is obsessed with buying lock after lock with which to bolt her door at home. She's miserable, trying to outsmart the local boys and their dogs. Why go through with it? Why not just come out as a woman or move to another city as a woman? There's some scant hint that maybe Jennie/Albert still enjoys the work she's able to do once in a while, but it doesn't seem to be a love strong enough to justify her crummy life. And if it's because it's what Jennie's used to, why the overwhelming fear she continually feels this late in her life?

In this story Jennie falls in love with a fellow soldier in the field. It was a love I personally questioned the necessity of. As Durrant notes in her Afterword, the romantic attachment between these two is fictionalized. Why, then, include it? Though the real Albert Cashier appears to developed an attachment to neither men nor women, putting the character through the requisite romantic paces felt a little forced. There's certainly enough emotional intensity inherent in the Civil War alone. No need to add in a romance that is presented as a very adult and sophisticated love.

Ah well. It's an interesting story and one done, you can tell, with a great deal of affection for the real Arthur Cashier/Jennie Hodgers. I do not think this is as strong an effort as it could have been, and perhaps some judicious editing was in order. Still, for those searching for an alternate look at soldiers in the Civil War with an interesting twist, "My Last Skirt" may certainly be a title to consider.

As for content, Erzulie's Skirt is all about women supporting women and finding power in the women of their family histories. One main character has African-Haitian slave roots, as probably does the authoress. The character's female partner is whiter but equally humble. Most of the scenes are among the poorest residents of the Dominican Republic, where the authoress was born and where I lived better than 15 years. Several chapters depict a horrifying diversion of the main characters: As boat-people illegal immigrants, they plunge into modern sex slavery in Puerto Rico.
As literature, this story is a great read. It is a captivating weave of Caribbean reality with a voodoo-type mysticism that is amazingly well researched and written. The title is a voodoo reference elaborated early in the text. Sex scenes are sketched with the subtle artistry of that spirit-filled world.
Its forgivable flaws, because it is a first book for the authoress, include some huge time-space jumps without much transition and also a thinly justified ending. Among its successes, a universally recognizable, regardless of historic or geographic setting, depiction of the determinant dynamics of family and poverty that mold a woman's lot it life.
The novel is dark because it is true to the dark reality that its protagonists overcome. More than dark, however, the novel is hopeful because it recounts their survival, their overcoming, and the passing on of their love-based power to the next generation's women.
I've already sent Erzulie's Skirt to my daughter who lives an alternative lifestyle. I feel that I understand her and I know myself better for having read it.

I read this just before reading Rebecca Solnit's "River of Shadows: Edweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West," and the parallels were manifold. Like hers, this is more than even expanded biography: it places Gauguin's South Sea quest in a historical and social context, discusses the mythologies of exoticism and primitivism, two cultural phenomena of late nineteenth century Europe, and explores how they contributed to Gauguin's complex and often self-contradictory identity. Eisenman has taken care to become familiar with Tahitian culture and mores, both then and now, and gives us the locals' views of Gauguin into the bargain.

As a painter, I was intimate with Gauguin's oeuvre and was familiar enough with his life (though I hadn't read Sweetman's definitive biography), and this both extended my understanding of the man and enhanced my enjoyment of the work.

The writer, a polymath with a rather academic style, isn't the compelling writer that Solnit is (hence 4 rather than 5 stars) but his subject is no less fascinating, the challenge of showing his subject simultaneously in the context of fin-de-siecle colonialism and European Modernism no less daunting. A very interesting approach to understanding a unique artist, one who justifies it totally.

Are you tired of those big diet books that promise fast but unrealistic results, suggest you eat half a grapefruit for a snack and offer in their diet plans recipes that include ingredients like vermouth? Let's face it--these are not realistic options for moms on the run!

In her vivacious booklet (only 42 pages), My Three Dollar Skirt: The Official Non-Official Health and Fitness Guide, Wilson offers women--especially forty-something moms--an easy solution to lose weight, maintain it, and keep energy levels high.

The author begins by relating the humorous anecdote that led to the writing of the guide, then shares her diet and exercise plan in a few easy steps. The difference between hers and other diet books lies in Wilson's wise simplicity. She divides her exercise plan into three parts: arms, abs, and aerobic dance, which she calls AerobaZing. Nothing original in the long run, except she sets limits for each, making the whole thing entirely doable and approachable. Arms and abs, for instance, are not to be worked out more than five minutes each, three times a week. She describes which exercises to make and also explains how to plan the dancing session so it'll be fun, exhilarating and, most importantly--quick!

As for the diet, there's no specific plan or menu, although Wilson lists the foods to avoid and finishes with Top Ten Tips.

This is not a diet book written by an expert or a doctor. It is a little guide that, using logic and common sense, offers you an easy and obvious way to stay in shape. It is written in a chatty style that engages the reader. The fact that it is so short makes it accessible to busy moms. In fact, if it were any longer it would defeat its purpose.

Armchair Interviews says: Contains wise and simple information

This is the book that, when I bought it 20 years ago, fired my enthusiasm for sixties pop culture. That enthusiasm has not waned even though my book is now torn, dog-eared and missing the cover.
The book covers nearly every aspect of 60's pop culture, from the mini-skirt to the obsession with spies and the cold war. Of course it has The Beatles and Twiggy and the whole 'British Invasion,' as well as the California surfing scene and Woodstock.
I actually found the book quite useful for expanding my 60's music collection and getting aquainted with groups that I was previously unfamiliar with. I was amazed intially at how many of the T.V. shows that I grew up loving were originally produced in the 60's. 'Gilligan's Island', 'The Twilight Zone', 'Laugh-In', 'Mission Imposible'...they're all here!
The book is loaded with great pictures, but unfortunately they are all in black and white. A book such as this, about such a colorful decade, just cries out for the glossy full-color, hard cover treatment.
Also unfortunately, the cover was very loose on my copy and the book came apart very quickly.
I hope this book comes back into print only with better production values and expanded sections to include such faves as 'The Avengers', 'Doctor Who', 'Thunderbirds', and 'Land of The Giants'. I wouldn't mind spending the extra dollars because, even as it was, this book has brought me many years of enjoyment, as I'm sure it will to anyone who is interested in the groovy, gear, mad, mod sixties.

This is a delightful little book by Lucille Chase who was a stewardess during the 1950's. It has very humorous illustrations made by Frank Daniels that add to the character of the stories told. The book was published in 1959 and gives insight into the mindset of some passengers who were taking their first commercial flights.

Some of her classic recollections are: an elderly woman who refused to board the plane unless she received a pair of goggles to keep the wind out of her eyes as the plane traveled through the sky; someone else who wanted to wear a parachute on board as a backup; and a male passenger who wondered if he really was sitting in a "vaporized" cabin. Pressurized cabins were a new thing to him.

This is a period piece that reflects the innocence of the flying public at the time. It is a light entertaining read and paints a nice picture of the days of travel in the 1950's.

Toward the end of the book the author states: "The commercial air transportation industry has grown in the past 50 years since the Wright brothers made their historic flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The next 50 years are going to be even bigger!" How right she was.

I suggest reading Sherry Waterman's book "From Another Island: Adventures and Misadventures of an Airline Stewardess" if you want a more detailed picture of traveling during the 1950's, the glamour age of the airlines.

Georgia Brown Watson (d.1993) was teaching school when World War Two began. She was among the first in Georgia to join the fledgling Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. After training assignments, she became involved in the Top Secret Battery X experiment to see if a composite crew of men and women could successfully operate an antiaircraft battery. She also was among the first to go into the new Women's Army Corps (WAC), and was Commanding Officer of the WAC Detachment, Headquarters Command, United Kingdom. She had the honor of hosting a visit by Queen Elizabeth to her Detachment in May 1945.
After the war Watson left the service, earned a PhD, and continued her pioneering ways as a professor at her alma mater, Georgia Southern University. When she retired, she wrote this account of her wartime experiences.
Watson's style is direct and humorous. I enjoyed this book.

I was kind of dissapointed. I read all the reviews and the idea sounded wonderful, but when I started reading it I was a little disappointed. Ever have one of those books in the corner that you start and you keep thinking "I want to finish it.." but you never do? That's the authors fault, not yours. I remember one part where Justine first meets her, and she is suddenly asking the main character if she wants to go to a crazy party with her, out of nowhere. Just seems really unrealistic, and when you read it you feel as if your blind to something, like the character is looking at the ground 80 percent of the time, and looks up every once in a while.
Sorry, i really wanted to like this book but found that I couldn't.

good book, very interesting. I had to re-read it because I got alittle lost but that might have been because of my one year old!

just finished this book today. i have to say, from reading the raves, i expected alot more from this book. first of all, it is very short. second, if you are like me and you like structure to your fiction, this is not for you. the book gravitates between real time and flashbacks. the setting (place, time, dates, etc) is not made clear at all to begin with so you sort of learn as you go. she bounces back and forth in between flash backs/hindsight so you have to stay on your toes. great for the adventurous reader who loves surprises and twists/turns i suppose. also you see her blur the line between reality/fantasy/hallucination alot, so you never really know where you are going or are disappointed when you read on to find it was only a fantasy. my main issue was that i found the main character, Sara, to be a very dull, boring girl whose only entertainment is in the lives of others. don't get me wrong, i love the seedy angst ridden girl stories as much as anyone else, but Sara simply is boring. with that in mind, i felt like i had no real reason to read on because i didn't care about the fate of any of the selfish, self-absorbed, and vacuous characters.

I'm 27, about ten years older than most of the characters in this book. I feel as though it would be much more relevant to someone in their mid-late teens, but I still throughly enjoyed it. I imagine that this would be a "cool" book to be reading if I were still in high school, going on an adventure with the protagonist, Sara, as she goes out into the world and loses a lot of her "innocence". I will admit that, while the book does seem like a noble and accurate portrayal of what it's like to be a misfit, the essence of growing up during adolescence. Very little if any of this stuff happened to me personally... but it was still quite powerful.

It's written very much like a diary, told from a first person's point of view. It's a subtle reminder that some misguided youths face these sorts of things everyday. Some by choice, some not by choice. And nothing bad has to happen to someone in order for them to travel down this path. Sara has a loving father, she herself doesn't start out as a rampant, promiscuous, drug addict. She meets characters along the way and gets thrown into this world overnight... perhaps as a means of finding herself.

An easy read, a page turner. I'd recommend this book to just about anyone.

The only reasons I didn't give this book 5 stars is because sometimes the author tried too hard to use slang and teenage stereotypes. I'm sure she meant for it to add to the plot or characters but it almost seemed as if she didn't remember what being an teenage girl felt like.
Other than that, I loved this book!

I've praised Di Piero before -- see BROTHER FIRE, the collection that followed this one -- but I must respond to the brainless review below (utterly devoid, please note, of specific referents like quotations or names). I must assert that SKIRTS AND SLACKS stands now, five years after its publication, as one of the very best recent renderings of complex American urban life in poetry. It's a book to praise in the same celebratory terms as Di Piero uses in one of his notable essays about the artform, full of "festive abrasiveness and chafing hilarity."

Such splendid roughness occurs especially in what would call the "South Philly sequence," roughly the opening third of SKIRTS, in which Di Piero returns to the rough-and-tumble Italian immigrant neighborhood of his upbringing. The trip was brought on by his mother's final illness; parents, old hangouts, former touchstones are all much on his mind. But what could've been a mere sentimental journey becomes more penetrating, more illuminating, alive to elements shadowy and carnal and thoroughly, even exasperatingly humane.

Just the way Di Piero skews the plea "forgive me," in the opening poem "'Philly Babylon'" (brought off in what might be called bebop pentameter), establishes his new command of the medium. But if I had to nominate just one poem here as a masterwork, it would be "Leaving Bartram's Garden in Southwest Philadelphia." In this remarkable culture-bridging vision, the poet rides the trolley out of that Philly attraction, the estate of an 18th-Century Quaker botanist, and so comes at once into a dicey neighborhood, where "[t]agger signatures surf red and black / across the wall." Yet this same grafitti recalls what the poet glimpsed in one of Bartram's mansion windows: "A redbird gashed the sunned mullion glass." He thinks: "I'm in the weave."

Such a profound commingling is rendered more subtly and movingly than I can convey here, to be sure, but it's a rare and splendid accomplishment, a transcendent connectedness prompted by gangbangers. Indeed this is a book of miracles in off-the-rack clothing, skirts and slacks.

This is one of those poetic voices that seems to believe there's virtue in being boring and following in the footsteps of others. Not one moment of freshness or originality in this whole collection. As a reader of poetry, I find it sad when timidity and resistance to imagination seem to be the principles of composition. Can I have my money back?

This book is quite moving in parts, and Di Piero is obviously a very competent poet. His "less is more" aesthetic, however, often leads him to write boring poems in flat language. His "tell it like it is" attitude kept me interested enough to finish the book, but eventually I felt that original use of language and a willingess to risk experimentation needn't be sacrificed for "emotional honesty." Sometimes less is just less.

Di Piero is a genius. Thank god we have him and his poetry, whose unfailing honesty, moral center, and attention to detail shame the work of his lesser contemporaries.

Still, with no polemic against the phony, highly-voiced, overly-emotional poetry of our day, Di Piero's work stands on its own as terrific. The poem "Girl With a Pearl Earring" is wonderful; his portraits of working class and modern life are consistently beautiful. It's impossible to put this book down without having imagined so much experience in the meantime. Get this! It is honest and true and skilled and mystical and American and lyrical.