from matchy to anti-matchy in 30 years

[OC Richard]

When I look back on it, it's amazing how much my approach to accessorising my kilt has changed over the last 30 years.

Still handsewn traditional wool kilts, still ghillies and Scottish-made kilt hose, sporrans, jackets, and bonnets, but a radically different approach to colour choices.

Back in the 1980s I was working in a Highland Outfitter and I took advantage of the opportunity to aquire things fairly cheaply.

I wanted to get a Day Dress outfit, and at that time I had the notion that everything should match. Where I got this notion from, I can't say. If I had paid attention to how gents dressed over in Scotland I would have known better!

I went about this wrongheaded quest logically: I knew that we only had a limited range of Balmoral colours available, but a large range of available tweeds. So I bought the Balmoral first and then went through all our tweed swatches to find the one that matched best. I then had a bespoke jackets and waistcoat made.

If at that time I knew of somebody who hand knit kilt hose, by golly I would have sent her a swatch of that tweed and had her knit an exactly matching pair of hose! But as it happens I found a pair that matched pretty well anyway.

At least at that time my brain could accept TWO colours, and for the other colour I matched the claret lines in my MacDonald (House of Edgar Muted) kilt. I hunted down velvet to match and made a bagcover for my pipes, bought flashes in that exact colour, and best of all found a knit necktie in that precise colour as well.

Here's the result, me back in the mid-1980s, the epitome of matchy-matchyness



Then over the years I got exposed to a vast amount of traditional kilt-wearing, old catalogues, The Highlanders of Scotland, The Duke of Rothesay's fashion sense, and many other things. I came to realise that the name of the game was co-ordination, or even startling juxtaposition, rather than matching.

One early wakeup call was the fiddler John Turner, who would wear bright scarlet hose with his deep purple kilt.

In looking at 18th century portraits I was struck by the fact that no notion existed of matching hose to kilt



In The Highlanders of Scotland I was most impressed by this fellow wearing tartan hose of an utterly contrasting tartan, sharing no colours with the kilt



And in old catalogues I could see nice contrasts, such as between jacket and hose here



In any case I've come round to the opinion that juxtaposion is the way to go. Here is how I often dress nowadays; I really like the blue shirt and bagcover, and claret hose, especially because those colours do not appear in the Isle of Skye tartan. And my necktie is a bright scarlet utterly at variance with my hose. (WWII US vets will recognise the pattern.)