Let's talk about ghillie brogues again: the Highland perspective

[OC Richard]

the fascination shown by some for inconsequential trivia when it comes to wearing any clothing of a supposed Scottish origin

Yes indeed I do have a fascination with such inconsequential trivia! I love that stuff. Call me odd or whatever... I always want to find out about things, be it linguistics or genetics or history or music or whatever.

Take this painting again. It rewards extensive study, like most of The Highlanders of Scotland paintings do.



The man on the left, an ordinary soldier... but note his shoes, neither our modern Mary Janes nor Ghillies, but something else. Officers at that time wore low-cut loafers the buckles on which were obviously nonfunctional (in other words, the shoes were slip-ons) but what about these? Did these buckles function like those of 18th century shoes? And note that the turnover cuffs on his hose aren't matching tartan as on modern full hose, but marl.

The man in the centre... very interesting... same footwear kilt etc as the soldier but note that he's wearing a plain civilian jacket. A civilian hired to pipe for the regiment? And a cool dirk with knife and fork side by side, with tan leather.

The man on the right. Note the typical tan roughout ghillies, but also that the ghillies have fewer tongues than modern ghillies do. In The Highlanders of Scotland ghillies appear with four sets of tongues (like modern ghillies) but also with only three sets, and even only two sets such as here. And, there's a pair with no tongues, in other words, an open top with laces crossing over this opening. An invention of a crazed artist? Hardly, because the exact shoes appear in an old catalogue I have from 1930