Highlights from
Fashion Freedom Fest 2023
Fashion Freedom Fest 2032
Saturday the 19th of August
17:00-19:00
Odense, Denmark
With special guest Sandra Jager
Hosted by Dylan Cawthorne, TEDx Odense “Men in Skirts” speaker
As featured in The Critical Pulse “De-Gendering Fashion Activists”
Sandra with her husband at Fashion Freedom Fest 2022
TEDx Talk - Men in Skirts
Dylan at TEDx Odense 2022
Photos from Fashion Freedom Fest 2022
Photos by: Steffen Nielsen and Mrs. Muth
Fashion Freedom Fest 2022
Friday the 12th of August
17:00-19:00
Odense, Denmark
With special guest Markus “ModeMuth”
Hosted by Dylan Cawthorne, TEDx Odense “Men in Skirts” speaker
As featured in The Critical Pulse “De-Gendering Fashion Activists”
FFF2022 Poster
Markus “ModeMuth” - read about Markus’approach to fashion and see many more of his outfits at his website https://www.modemuth.de/
Fashion Freedom Fest 2021
Friday the 13th of August
This project was a development of the previous year’s Men in Skirts event. The Fashion Freedom 2021 event aimed to engage with everyone and their clothing, and to provoke these norms through an interactive art exhibit. It did so by blurring the lines between the binary perception of gender, and in blurring the lines between the audience and the exhibition. It took place on Friday the 13th of August 2021 in Odense, DK.
Prior to the event, participants were asked “how would you dress if no one was judging you?” This though experiment was perhaps the most important aspect of the artwork. At the exhibition, participants engaged in spontaneous interactions with one another, including discussing their chosen wardrobe and thought process behind it. In this way, the participants were the exhibit. After the event, participants may continue to reflect on their wardrobe choices - and if they are taking full advantage of their fashion freedom.
Babies in skirts <3
Men in skirts 2020:
an interactive art project
This project aimed to highlight gender norms around men and their clothing, and to provoke these norms through an interactive art exhibit. It did so by blurring the lines between the binary perception of gender, and in blurring the lines between the audience and the exhibition which took place on Friday the 14th of August 2020.
The exhibit consisted of spontaneous interaction between the audience and the exhibit. Attendees chose from over 40 skirts to try on, thus becoming an active part of the exhibition.
Engineers in skirts
The skirt installation - participants could select a skirt to try on and wear during the event.
Fundraising: 1,000 DKK
One thousand DKK (around 205 Canadian Dollars) was raised during the event and donated to the White Ribbon charity in Canada which promotes healthy masculinity: https://www.whiteribbon.ca.
The installation
The installation took place at the showroom in Det Blå Kvarter (“The Blue Quarter”) in the Odense harbor :
Byens Ø, Estlandskaj, 5000 Odense C
Special thanks to the following people and organizations for supporting this project:
Odense Municipality - https://english.odense.dk/
Det Blå Kvarter (“The Blue Quarter”) - https://www.facebook.com/DetBlaaKvarter
Empty your wardrobe Kolding - https://emptyyourwardrobe.com/en/home/
Adam Montandon - http://adammontandon.com/
Steffen Nielsen - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErP7OvN0bGKP4b595420kw/featured
Mikkel and Frida - https://www.stenbjerglykke.dk/
Tabitha Maria Guldberg Andersen
Lovisa Fjeldsted
Background reserach
I began my investigation into men that wear skirts - and to understand their reasons for doing so - in 2019. My friends told me about a Danish documentary that had been made about a family living off-grid with a the father wore skirts. I reached out to Mikkel Fødegård, and he kindly allowed myself and my photographer friend Steffen to visit him, his wife, and their children and to take photos of him in his skirt. Mikkel told me that he didn’t like to wear shoes and didn’t like to have his legs restricted with pants, so the skirt was for him a very practicle piece of clothing. His skirt design consists of four panels of overlapping fabric. It is easy to sew and can be made at home from sustainable materials supporting his values. My talk with Mikkel inspired me to keep investigating this “men in skirts” phenomenon.
About the artist
Dylan Cawthorne is an engineer and associate professor. "I work at the University of Southern Denmark; I occasionally wear skirts to work and to hang out with my friends. I think skirts are cool from a fashion standpoint, because they give a new shape that men do not usually wear in real life (only in fashion shows). I think that many men could be afraid to wear a skirt because it would call into question their masculinity. But I think that being secure in yourself and trying new things is a healthy form of masculinity. My personal belief is that a gender binary is much too simplistic to capture the complexity of real people, and I am not scared to be associated with the "feminine". So far, I have had a lot of looks, but also a lot of positive experiences from wearing a skirt."