Ghillie brogues - why the dislike and resentment..?

[Troglodyte]

It seems that whenever ghillie-brogues become the object of focus, the response they produce is often dislike or dispise.

Why is this?

What is the reason for railing against them?

I can see that to some eyes they are so unlike 'normal' shoes that they could be seen as too much a form of costume, or even theatrical.

But they are not a new invention, and are far older in their style and tradition than the Oxford or Derby (two English county towns) styles that frequently get suggested for kilt-wear, and descriptions of a form of ghillies can be found in accounts from the 1500s onwards. I cannot think of any other current shoe style that the same can be said of.

I have seen that some think Ghillies are too dressy for anything but the most formal occasions, but the MacLeay and MacIan portraits of the 1870s and 1840s show them to be quite 'every day' as the written accounts tell us.

The one thing about ghillies is that they are totally and uniquely 'Highland', and primarily intended for kilt-wear - which other styles would struggle to answer. Even 'closed' full-brogues are more frequently seen with trousers than the kilt.

So what have I missed?

Is it that they have become associated with kilt-hire, and so not-quite-right? Are ghillie-brogue wearers seen as not knowing the 'rules' of correct Highland dress form?

When there are various versions available, in both black and brown, soft and flexible or stiff and thick soled, there are surely enough styles to suit most tastes and occasions. Some of the early how-to Highland dress guides suggest that the long laces are prefectly correctly tied around the instep, rather than around the ankle, or can be substituted with more normal short laces.

So, other than personal taste or preference, why the dislike.

Is there anyone out there who has the definitive answer..?

[bdkilted]

I can't give a definitive answer for anyone but me; but I've never found them in my size as I have very wide feet.
I did find one UK store online that 'said' they carried the wide sizes, but I never buy shoes without trying them on as there are no standard sizing. I have managed several shoes stores in my varied career and trying to never let anyone out of my store without trying on the shoes, as it saved us all the time and hassle of a return later.

[Troglodyte]

I can't give a definitive answer for anyone but me; but I've never found them in my size as I have very wide feet.
I did find one UK store online that 'said' they carried the wide sizes, but I never buy shoes without trying them on as there are no standard sizing. I have managed several shoes stores in my varied career and trying to never let anyone out of my store without trying on the shoes, as it saved us all the time and hassle of a return later.

I know just what you mean...

But do you like ghillie-brogues otherwise?

Would you rather wear them when a-kilted, instead of a less distinctly 'Highland' style?

I'm guessing you fall into the pro-ghillie category - like me, who usually wears a pair of 'regimental' ghillies that are made with double leather sole and fitted with steel toe and heel tips as standard. Not a version for dancing in - unless it's heavy-footed clog-dancing!

I wonder if those kilties you see wearing shiny, pointy 'ordinary' styles ever get asked why they don't wear 'real' kilt-shoes.

I have a copy of the 1914 Gamages (a London department store supplying the Empire with wondrous goodies) that shows two styles of heavy full-brogue, and classes them as 'Real Scotch' brogue shoes, and so distinct from 'English' styles.

In my younger days (40-odd years ago) I was (I now realise) priviledged to have and eventually wear out a couple of pairs of what we might call country brogues these days, made by a now defunct Northampton maker. Stout walking-shoes, they certainly were, and I remember them having 'Clansman' on the label.

Both these sources were giving clear Scottish Highland associations to brogues, which is why I am puzzled at the resistance to ghillies today, when they are so obviously Highland.

[OC Richard]

Good questions!

That's the problem with Ghillies- there are always more questions than answers.

Are they traditional? (That is, having an unbroken lineage of use and evolution of form as far back as our sources allow us to trace.)

Or are they a Revival? (That is, a thing not in current use which is freshly created, either copied from a relic or an invention based on imagery, textual reference, or mere conjecture.)

If a Revival, when did they appear?

How were they regarded in times past?

To make a case for them to be traditional, that is, having an unbroken chain of use, one would have to produce a series of images of them being worn covering every period from the mid-19th century back to our earliest clear images of men wearing Highland Dress (around 1700).

We can do that with the kilt, the sporran, the bonnet, the dirk, etc. But as far as I know Ghillies don't show up in images of men wearing Highland Dress until Victorian times.

Which leaves us with Ghillies being a Revival.

A revival of what? Yes we have a verbal description of Highlanders making their own deerskin moccasins, and we have a survival of something possibly akin to that with the pamutai of the Aran Islanders. And we could throw into the mix the footwear similar to the pamutai which are traditional in the Balkans.

But the Ghillies which seem to appear out of nowhere in the Victorian period aren't like any of those things. They're built-up ordinary shoes, but are open-topped with one to four pairs of tabs holding the shoestrings.

I do wonder if the Allen Brothers, the very men who in the second quarter of the 19th century were whispering into Clan Chiefs' ears "just to let you know, you're not wearing the true ancient tartan of your clan. If you would like, we will share with you our unique knowledge and provide you with a sketch of your true tartan you can take to a weaver" the sketch actually being of a tartan entirely from the imagination of the brothers, were also appearing at Highland functions wearing Ghillies which they themselves devised and had made, explaining to all who asked that these were the true ancient Highland shoes.

What to me smacks of Revival is how the earliest large-scale record we have of Ghillie wearing, The Highlanders of Scotland, show nearly all the Ghillies being tan roughout hide, indicating that they're thought to be a rustic rural shoe. There's one pair of black Ghillies and they have decorative buckles attached at the toes.

There are plenty of photos of men in the mid 19th century wearing Ghillies, however these are invariably black (or possibly dark brown).

The only photos I've ever been able to find of tan roughout hide Ghillie Brogues are the pair made for the future King Edward VII as part of his quasi-historical Highland costume.

[OC Richard]

Why are Ghillies hated?

In Pipe Band circles Ghillies are generally hated

1) because they're part of the band costume that everyone has to wear to compete in. The whole costume is hated, not just the shoes.

2) because so many band people are wearing uncomfortable Ghillies. It's always been puzzling to me why people who would never wear a pair of uncomfortable shoes of any other sort do purchase and wear uncomfortable Ghillies. (They come in regular, wide, extra wide, and orthopedic.)

Traditional kiltwearers hate them because they're tinged with the dual stink of Kilt Hire Shops and Pipe Band costumes.

Both things are recent: Pipe Bands started wearing Ghillies only in the late 1970s/early 1980s which is the same time that Kilt Hire began booming.

[Troglodyte]

Why are Ghillies hated?

In Pipe Band circles Ghillies are generally hated

1) because they're part of the band costume that everyone has to wear to compete in. The whole costume is hated, not just the shoes.

2) because so many band people are wearing uncomfortable Ghillies.

Traditional kiltwearers hate them because they're tinged with the dual stink of Kilt Hire Shops and Pipe Band costumes.

But is this not true of all elements of Highland dress?

It is human nature to dislike or resent what we are 'forced' to do, so the opposition to ghillie-brogues is probably more the association the individual gives to them than careful reasoning.

The so-called Traditional Kilters' stance on various elements of Highland dress is curious to me - being what seems to be based on the inter-war years catalogue ideal that the prevailing fashions and trends lent to it.

It could be said that nothing about the upper-body garments have any real historic value to them, and the tweed-coatee-and-weskit that we all now love so much is essentially English leisure styles adapted to kilt-wear.

Certainly by the 1940s, this Traditionl Kilters' style was being heavily criticised in print, for its continual dulling-down of Highland style to match more closely the prevailing Lowland fasions. Lord Lyon condemned it as a desire of the self-concious, and called it un-Scottish and contemptible.

MacIan's portraits from the 1840s show various representatives of the clans in ghillies - or, as the descriptions usually say, Brog - so they have been appearing in illustrations for almost two centuries, even if not in modern production form.

All of which makes me wonder about the ghillie-brogue. The style and antiquity is at least double that of the 'contemptible' tweed-and-Tattersall of the TKs, and far more appropriate than any English shoe style.

As for comfort, is that not a matter of fit? Any badly-fitting shoe will be uncomfortable, whatever the style I should say.

Myself, I have formed the impression that anti-ghillie views are based less on historical evidence than on what they have come to represent to some out-spoken individuals, who then influence the unwitting.

It would be easy to argue that the anti-ghillie hostility could just as easily (and possibly more rightly) be directed at the tweed coatee, and show it up as a kind of 1930s cos-play. Surely the true traditionalists ought to be arguing for the far more authentic twin waistcoat style that was frequently noted prior to the Dress Act.

Perhaps the use of 'Traditional' with kilters is the problem - surely only what was habitually worn prior to the ban on Highland dress is authentic, and everything that has come after the Act is Revivalist. If mid-20th century styles are acceptable as traditional, why not the footwear that evolved a century or more before from the original 'Brog'?

[MacKenzie]

But as far as I know Ghillies don't show up in images of men wearing Highland Dress until Victorian times.

Which leaves us with Ghillies being a Revival.

A revival of what? Yes we have a verbal description of Highlanders making their own deerskin moccasins, and we have a survival of something possibly akin to that with the pamutai of the Aran Islanders. And we could throw into the mix the footwear similar to the pamutai which are traditional in the Balkans.

But the Ghillies which seem to appear out of nowhere in the Victorian period aren't like any of those things. They're built-up ordinary shoes, but are open-topped with one to four pairs of tabs holding the shoestrings.

I'm certain I have linked to this page before. The part about the early evolution of the shoe, from the "deerskin moccasins" to what we know today is interesting.

Early 1600’s saw references to ghillie brogues and the name Pampooties. Pampooties are raw-hide shoes, which were formerly made and worn on the Aran Islands of County Galway, Ireland.


In the 17th century the Squirarchy had heels added and merged the styles of the Cuaran and Ghillie. These hardier shoes were ideal for deer stalking, hunting and fishing. Circa 1640 a shawl tongue was added with a fringe to lend a touch of elegance. It was thought Irish landowners started to decorate their shoes with patterned sequence of holes. In the original shoes the holes served a pragmatic purpose i.e. to allow water to flow through. For good luck the designs incorporated coded symbols. As soon as the style became associated with the gentry the holes became more decorative features (Vass & Molnar, 1999). Later when the holes only served for decorative purposes leather uppers were rubbed with melted candle wax (or tallow) to improve waterproofing. The brogue became refined without losing its sturdiness as the style crossed over into main fashion.

So by the mid 1600s we have a shoe with a heel (and I'll assume a sole to mount it to) and with a tongue in it. So why did what became known as the "traditional highland shoe" (the "ghillie brogue") devolve? Why did the tongue get removed? Was it the MacLeay prints? Or was it, as OCR said, the Allen bros. - or someone - deciding & declaring that, in order to be/look "traditional" you need to yank the tongue out of your brogues and wrap the laces around your ankles?

[Troglodyte]

Authenticity and historical references are kind of irrelevant, I feel.

Certainly, there are many references and descriptions to Highlanders' footwear of the past - and significantly from before the somewhat despised Revival era.

But authenticity of the ghillie-brogue is not what I was getting at, rather why the dislike of them.

My reason for asking is, that over the past 40 or 50 years, I have noticed a certain dislike or disdain for them - with advice being that a good Oxford or Derby is far preferable for kilt-wear.

It would be easy to argue and demonstrate that nothing about what we now consider as Highland dress has anything other than a passing resemblance or similar role to those that would have been common before the Dress Act. Even the kilt itself is now a highly-modified version of what went before, and the same kind of revival process and moderisation as a result of manufacturing and technological advances in footwear and other garments is to be expected.

Not liking the ghillie-brogue for reasons of comfort or style is one thing, but encouraging others to shun them is something quite different.

My curiosity is why a style of shoe that is so uniquely and distictly Highland, that has evolved from ancient styles into its present from over the past 200 years or so, is thought by some to be so unsuitable for kiltwear, and so undesirable on others.

I suspect the 'kilt-cops' have been at work again...

[OC Richard]

I'm certain I have linked to this page before. The part about the early evolution of the shoe, from the "deerskin moccasins" to what we know today is interesting.

Thing is, they don't offer any evidence to prove a continuance of use during which the foot-covering of unknown appearance described in the 1542 John Elder letter evolved, through stages of development documented in iconography, into the heavy-soled hobnailed brogue which appears in Victorian times.

And various articles have shown that same old shoe which has a seam down the top. I looked it up, it was found in a cave in Armenia. Why multiple articles about the history of Ghillies shows an Armenian shoe, who can say.

For sure there's plenty of folk shoes from the Carpathian Krpec to the Balkan Opanak to the Aran Islands' Pamputai but these do not constitute iconographic evidence of use of something similar in the Highlands.

[Tobus]

When there are various versions available, in both black and brown, soft and flexible or stiff and thick soled, there are surely enough styles to suit most tastes and occasions. Some of the early how-to Highland dress guides suggest that the long laces are prefectly correctly tied around the instep, rather than around the ankle, or can be substituted with more normal short laces.

I do own a pair of vintage ghillie brogues (Keltic - "The Scottish Shoe"), and wear them as you describe with short laces tied over the instep like any other shoe. In my opinion, having the laces ties around the ankle is extremely uncomfortable, impractical, ridiculous, and costumish. There is nothing about lacing around the ankles that makes any sense in today's world.

If indeed the primitive origin of this shoe style was worn in such a manner, it was due to the shoes being made in a very rudimentary fashion from a single bit of deer hide without any additional construction techniques which would allow it to stay on the foot otherwise. I can imagine a primitive Highlander wanting it laced around the ankle so it doesn't completely pull off when he slogs through a bog. Today's shoes are built on a solid, sturdy sole, made from several shaped pieces of leather to fit more correctly to the foot. And we don't typically have to travel through such boggy terrain on a daily basis.

So whatever need there was for lacing up the ankle no longer exists. The style is purely for aesthetics. But it comes at the cost of comfort and practicality. Personally, I must have my shoes tied snugly around my foot to avoid chafing and blistering. Lacing around my ankle would be too loose for the way I want my shoes to fit my feet. And tying them tighter behind the ankle would risk the laces digging in to the back of my ankle, right in the Achilles tendon area. Perhaps it's just the engineer in me, but lacing around the ankle is perhaps the worst possible method to tie a shoe. It fights with the flexure and rotation of the ankle whilst walking and doesn't adequately cinch the shoe over the foot. If I want my footwear to go round my ankle, I'll wear an ankle boot (which I actually prefer, and wear daily).

I'm not necessarily opposed to sacrificing comfort and practicality for aesthetics. But I would have to really like the aesthetics. And with ghillie brogues, I just don't. I admit and agree that they have an established provenance in Highland wear (for both daywear and evening wear, depending on the style). But in my opinion, their existence is an attempt to keep alive a distinct look for no good reason. It's pure costumery. Just as the kilt evolved from a feileadh mor to the small kilt we wear today, it's OK for shoes to evolve to a more practical style.