Starfleet Skant: (Mini Dress or Skirt for men)

Starfleet Skant

Did you know that early on in Star Trek TNG days, men wore skirts too?

Nope, I am not making this up. They made it a point to show that men could wear the skirt version of the uniform too. I guess this was being progressive in Gene's eyes. During the time, it just came off as being stupid. I didn't even like the women wearing them in the age of the late 80s. It just seemed to be too much of a throwback to the 60's TOS show. And, I get what they were going for. In the 24^th century, we won't be hung up on things like gender issues in clothing.  And it turned the whole having women in short skirts on the old show on its head.  Now, men can wear them too!

And, yes the TNG female skirts were sexy on women, but pants would seem to fall into the military uniform stance.  It should be noted that both TOS pilots had women exclusively in pants without a single skirt in sight as far as Star Fleet uniforms go. 

Troi wore one of these the entire first episode before switching to the gray suit. If you watch closely in the last scene of the same episode, Yar is wearing one of these skirts too. She was the chief of security. Why would you wear that considering that your job is to run around protecting and fight people?

Look closely and you can see her wearing it. 

“Skants” would be phased out of the show by the beginning of season 2, probably because Gene's influence was starting to wane around that time. They did bring back the skirts during the flashback scenes in the last episode of TNG.

I found it distracting seeing men in the Skants as they were called in the Treklore. Interestingly enough, this notion of feminine clothing styles on men is now acceptable with man-purses and skinny jeans. It is only a matter of years before male “skirts” become the rage with men. I guess Gene was spot on in predicting transparent aluminum, cell phones and stun setting guns and now men in skirts. (And we can connect the Holodeck to online role playing games.)

Do we need the go-go boots?