Harry Styles can get away with wearing a skirt. But can I?

Yes, a man can rock a skirt on the catwalk or the red carpet – but what if your natural habitat is the greasy spoon or street market? Time to slip into that slitted maxi …

I love clothes, including those defined as feminine. I rarely wear such things outside, because who’s got the guts? This could be the time. Gendered fashion is, reportedly, dead. After wearing lounge pants for two years, men want to liberate their legs. To test the cultural temperature, I’ve borrowed a long black skirt from my friend Rowena, and am wearing it around south London, to see if anyone cares. They do. Men in skirts may be having a moment, but my experience is excruciating. Passersby stare at me with narrowed eyes, like I’m a piece of long division.

It looks so easy on magazine covers. Harry Styles, Pete Davidson and NBA star Russell Westbrook have burned the menswear rulebook, while celebrities such as Kid Cudi, Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Isaac are also feted as straight male skirt kings. Thom Browne, Raf Simons, Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons all pushed the look in recent collections. But catwalks and red carpets are one thing, Peckham Rye in a slitted maxi is quite another. I may as well be wearing a colander for a crown.