Modern Macdonald tartan

[Phillips]

I am about to order a new kilt in the MacDonald modern and was curious as to what color flashes I should order with it. I only have on pair of hose right now in the lovat blue color. Any advice as to which color (black or red) would look best.
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[Andrews Son]

i have the modern macdonald tartan and i wear black or white hose (i know i know im a heretic .) But ive ordered lovat blue and lovat green hose and i reckon both will go with this tartan. imo as the red dominates the tartan i dont know if red hose goes well, another opinion would be best concerning that , but the lesser colours are green and blue so dont think you could go wrong with blue or green.
But you'll know when you get the kilt

Gavin


Edited post Sorry i got way ahead of myself you asked about flashes. Red shall be great with it
Sorry for the mistake

[Mikilt]

I have a MacDonald Modern and I wear either bottle green, lovat green or black hose with red garter ties.

[The Wizard of BC]

There is a growing feeling among those who wear the kilt everyday, or at least often, that how we choose what to wear with our kilt is just like how we would choose what to wear with pants.

Our current thinking is that the kilt is perfectly capable of standing on its own. Or put in other words "just because you choose to wear a kilt does not mean that everything must now match the kilt". Just as we would not base everything on what pants we choose to wear.

Here is an example. If you were to go to a wedding where the groom side are in kilts, all the guys would have the same jacket, shirt, tie, hose and shoes, but each would wear their own Tartan. And that works wonderfully well.

What we try to do is look at the whole outfit. We don't think of our outfit as matching but rather color coordinating. I will choose my shirt first. What ever shirt I pull out of the closet that day. I then go to my sock drawer and choose a pair of hose that coordinate with my shirt. Blues, grays, and blacks go well together as do browns, yellows and reds.

Once I have the basic color for my outfit I will choose other items such as a tie or my flashes as "That little splash of color" that sets the outfit off. You don't want something too far off or outrageous but just something to catch the eye. If you want you can choose one of the minor colors in your outfit to coordinate your hose to. Your pocket square or tie for example.

You may also choose to pull a minor color from your Tartan. A small red line in your Tartan would coordinate with red flashes. etc. They don't have to be the exact same color or shade of red. Just one that goes nicely together.

The idea of choosing a color for your flashes is sort of like choosing a kilt pin. The kilt pin is the equivalent of a lady wearing a brooch. It is that little piece of jewelry that shines and catches the eye.

You may even choose not to wear the flashes at all. The Garters are what hold your socks up. The flashes are extra and slide off the garters. I seldom wear flashes with my daily outfits.

The idea I am trying to get across is "Don't get so fixed on flashes that you forget the rest of your outfit." Look at it as a whole and I think you will find that what color flashes you wear is a very minor part of the whole.

And always, always remember that this is not a uniform. A uniform is, well, uniform. Everyone is alike. You wear what the uniform says you must wear. So there are a lot of rules. But the rules are so everyone knows how to put stuff on so that when on parade everyone looks the same.

In civilian wear we are guided by our personal color and fashion sense. Unfortunately most guys were never taught anything about how to build an outfit.

I honestly think that this is why God made girls. So we could go to then and ask stuff like, "Honey, do these pleats make my butt look fat?", or "Dear, do these flashes go with my eyes?".

Eventually we start to get an idea of what coordinates with what. With a little experience (and a little guidance by our ladies) we can learn how to dress ourselves in the morning.

And a little after that we learn that we don't have to make the whole outfit centered around (and matching) the kilt.

[ProudGrandsonofClanGrant]

For me, red garters is the go-to for almost any pair of hose (even red ones). For you, perhaps black would better suit your tastes, I don't know. Just wear what you like mate!
Cheers
Nick

[creagdhubh]

I'd go with scarlet coloured flashes myself; since they would work with kilt hose in just about any colour, but really, wear what strikes your fancy!

[Grizzled Ian]

Kyle, red flashes with my new Dusky Pink hose is a combination that I will not attempt without my good lady's input on the complete outfit.

[creagdhubh]

Kyle, red flashes with my new Dusky Pink hose is a combination that I will not attempt without my good lady's input on the complete outfit.

Here's what I think works great with the dusty pink/deep pink colour:

http://houseoflabhran.com/country-sh...rter-ties.html

http://houseoflabhran.com/country-sh...rter-ties.html

[The Wizard of BC]

Let's call this Fashion in History.

Simply because someone asked about vest buttons and sleeve length.

The story goes that King Edward VII, being a rotund man, could not manage to get the bottom button on his vest done up. So he left them undone.
Now this was in the day when vest were straight across the bottom.

Soon this became fashionable.

Then, some smart young man decided to make a vest that looked like the bottom was gaping open and the vest points we know today were introduced.

When I was a young man learning to dress I was taught that if the bottom of your vest is straight across you left the bottom button undone.
If, however your vest had points it was already simulating the bottom button open so you buttoned all the buttons.

But today, to make it easier, and because few vest are made straight across any more, we just leave the bottom button undone on all vests.

Now we move on to sleeve length.
This also comes from when I was a younger man.

I was taught that the proper jacket sleeve length was between the first and second knuckle of the thumb. This would mean that with your arms at your side no shirt sleeve would be showing. I was taught this by the master tailor of the US Marine Depot at Parris Island. He had been making Dress Blue uniforms for about 30 years.

If you raise your arms on a jacket fitted like this your shirt sleeve would show just enough for someone to see your cufflinks. I was taught that you never show the entire cuff and never, ever show the shirt sleeve itself.

Now there is a story about this too. I learned this story from the same master tailor many years later.

It is said that jacket sleeve lenght changed in the early days of "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. It seems that Johnny liked to wear really white shirts. But the TV cameras in those days were not good at white balance so when Johnny walked out the camera would 'bloom'.

So, the story goes, Johnny had all the sleeves of his jackets cut shorter. When he walked on stage you would see 1" to 2" of white shirt cuff. Johnny would then "shoot his cuffs" and hold his hands in front of his waist allowing the TV camera to avoid that White Balance 'bloom'.

And the shorter jacket sleeve was born. I have even seen some today who say that with the arms at the side you should see the cufflinks. Each to their own.

Now, I don't know if these stories are true. Probably about as true as the average Wiki article. But they make a good story.

To this day all my jackets have sleeve lengths that many guys today think are too long. I still like my jacket sleeves to just cover my shirt cuffs when my arms are down at the side.

[OC Richard]

In the old days they wore red garter ties nearly all the time no matter what tartan it was.

Or you can get one of these sets that comes with a pair of elastic garters and pairs of flashes in four different colours.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Shooting-Ela...item5895bb8bef

It's what I usually wear. My thing is not have the flashes and hose the same colour, and to have them look nice on their own, with no attempt to match the kilt. My favourites are claret hose with ancient blue flashes, and ancient blue hose with claret flashes. Doesn't matter what kilt it is.

I noticed, when I went back and looked at what I tend to wear, that I'm choosing colour pairs that work together, but don't necessarily match anything else in the outfit.

With the ubiquitous black Argyll jacket that we pipers wear taking jacket colour out of the equation, you're left with:

1) shirt/neckie
2) kilt
3) hose/flashes

My current favourite outfit is:

1) sky blue/scarlet
2) Isle of Skye
3) ancient blue/claret

I've chosen cool/warm colour pairs. Didn't dawn on me at first, but that's probably why I've chosen those pairs.

Note that Isle of Skye has no blue or red in it whatsoever. This fact, and the fact that I'm wearing scarlet and claret, makes the colours of the outfit stronger.