Highland costume in world context

[OC Richard]

Comments made by somebody the other day made me realise that not everyone sees Highland costume the way I do, as part of humankind-wide, world-wide, folk costume.

Place after place, people after people, tribe after tribe have ancient traditional costumes which have certain things in common.

One is the urge to cover as many surfaces as possible with designs.

A range of techniques are used to do this: fabrics can be woven with designs, articles can be knit with designs, plain fabrics can be embroidered, leather can be tooled and decorated with studs, metal can be engraved, wood can have designs turned or carved.

Here's a quick visual which (to me anyhow) shows that the Highland love of colour and pattern is far from unique.

Here are Quechua and Aymara people, people from Africa and Bulgaria and Tibet and Scotland.