parkinson — Community Archive

2025-07-24 00:19:05

Serious question for the guys: Why does male Hanfu often get such low acceptance?

I’ve heard reactions like: It looks too gay or Real men wouldn’t wear that.

Historical likes: 11

Historical comments

Merriel · 2025-07-26 03:27:12

First, what do you mean by “low acceptance”? Do you have data? Then, I think the focus of male fashion since the 20th century has been on sobriety and conformism. So something as extravagant and atypical as Hanfu in modern fashion doesn’t fall under this criterium. Plus, they look like dresses, so…^^

Historical likes: 5

michelleross · 2025-07-26 23:06:46

I think there are too few styles of men’s Hanfu, most of hanfu styles are very feminine

Historical likes: 1

lawerence · 2025-07-28 22:09:05 · Reply to Merriel (#13770)

Agree, hanfu looks like dress

Tifany · 2025-07-31 04:45:37

Just Do it! Don’t worry about what other people think.

Historical likes: 1

myingmei · 2025-10-14 14:08:41

(prefacing this by saying I’m a man who does hanfu in relatively queer spaces)
a lot of guys are definitely turned away from hanfu because the western gaze tends to read skirts or nice fabrics as feminine. combine that with the fact that east asian men are already seen by the west as inherently less masculine than their non-asian counterparts, and you find yourself in a pretty tricky position in a world that looks down on feminine men. basically the west sees chinese fashion/ppl as feminine and then punishes them for it, so many men (of any race) want to avoid that.
then there’s also the commercial aspect to the whole thing. even though some of the pioneers of the hanfu movement were men, the market is mainly targeted towards women. women are more expected to buy nice clothing and “dress up”, and to buy the gufeng accessories and makeup products that come out alongside the clothing.
plus, there are more cases of women wearing masculine hanfu than there are of the inverse. so if you target male audiences, you can only really sell masculine hanfu. but if you target female audiences, you can sell twice the type of product.

Historical likes: 1