The fact that he was a male or that I a particular gender violated rules did not, I think, make any dress. Violation of social rules catches attention regardless of the sex.

Milgram (1978) observed that people would feel a nauseous sensation when violating social convention in even an innocuous way, and indeed I felt that, having to force myself into going down the stairs and into public dressed the way I was. I relied on the stormy situation to buoy me. This again was another of Milgram's observations: that his students, when implementing breaching experiments, often gave themselves 'crutches'.

I noticed too that it was easier to 'socially breach' when others were engaged in similar acts and socially breaching too.

Harold Garfinkel, pioneer of social breaching, proposed that we are anchored in a certain web of social conventions that has become our reality and that any difference to that reality disturbs others even though differences in themselves may not be adverse or injurious (Rafalovich, 2006)....

What harm, after all, does it give others when the guy dresses in a plastic bag, or when I exit with legs wrapped in garbage bags? The man, in the first case, may only be suffocating himself. Yet people, certainly in the first case, were disturbed by his response and disturbed enough to jeer. Sometimes, as Garfinkel proposed, it is useful to disturb social conventions. Such happened, for instance in the 1950s when the Black-White parading of separate seating, busing, eating and so forth was disturbed in the South. It may be socially uncomfortable, but questioning social conventions can sometimes lead to positive change.
Source

Stanley, Milgram; Sabini, John (1978), "Advances in environmental psychology 1, the urban environment," in Baum, a.; Singer, J.E.; Valins, S., on maintaining social norms: A field experiment in the subway, Erlbaum Associates, pp. 31 -- 40

Rafalovich, Adam (2006), "Making sociology relevant: The assignment and application of breaching experiments," Teaching sociology 34: 156 --…