Mark Bryan and the Men Who Just Wear It
Mark Bryan is a robotics engineer in Germany. He’s in his sixties. He wears skirts and heels to work. Not on a special occasion, not for a photo shoot, not as a statement — just on a Tuesday, to the office, because that’s what he’s wearing.
He doesn’t explain it. There’s no manifesto on his Instagram, no pinned post about identity or breaking norms. He just posts photos of his outfits — well-put-together, usually a pencil skirt or an A-line with heels and a blazer — and gets on with his day. His feed looks like a fashion blog, not a campaign.
That’s why he matters to me as a reference point. He proved something simple: you don’t need to explain it. The act is the statement. A man in a skirt who treats it as ordinary makes it ordinary.
There are others. Some visible, most not. Men who wear what they want across the aisle and don’t build a narrative around it. They share one thing: they stopped asking permission.
I take something from that approach. The refusal to justify. But I’m dealing with something Mark Bryan doesn’t need to think about: the fit problem. He’s not a bodybuilder. His clothes fit off the rack. Mine don’t. So while the attitude is the same — just wearing this — what I’m doing underneath is different. I’m rebuilding the body so the clothes work.
If you want a starting point for what this looks like when someone just does it, look up Mark Bryan. He’s the clearest reference I’ve found.
