Double Kilt Hose for Cold Weather??

[JohntheBiker]

Clearly there are some practical reasons listed here for wearing sock liners and I am sure that there X-markers that could turn it into a fashion statement.

As to warmth, it's all about the knees! Thick wooly kilt hose will keep your legs warm but you'll feel an icy blast of winter cold around your knees, especially if you wear your kilts with enough space between kilt and hose.

[Riverkilt]

I'm not a physicist, but do know that hot air rises. When I'm kilted in cold weather I like to think that maybe some of the hot air trapped under my kilt spills out below and helps warm my knees some.

[Glen]

I have a pair of thin cross country skiing socks that end, fortunately, right where I fold over the hose on my short legs. The socks are designed to be worn inside the cross country ski socks, thus work great inside hose...

[lukeyrobertson]

Well, who'd a thunk it? Even at minus 25c I've not thought about doubling up. It is more the "knees" (but once they're numbed through, there's no feeling anyway!). But it is one reason why I have two kilts that drop to the mid-knee and if need be can be pulled a little lower (one of them is the 16oz tweed). I'm going to keep an eye out for the thin cross country ski socks. You never know when I might have to kilt in -40!

[Tobus]

I'm not a physicist, but do know that hot air rises. When I'm kilted in cold weather I like to think that maybe some of the hot air trapped under my kilt spills out below and helps warm my knees some.

It would actually be pretty cool to see a thermal video image of someone in the cold wearing a kilt, to see how the warm air under the kilt 'spills out'. I would imagine that if you're just standing still, the warmth in there would stay mostly still. But as you walk and the pleats swing, it gets dissipated.

I know I don't exactly live in a place where it gets truly cold, but when I do wear my kilt in what passes for cold weather down here (20-30 degrees F), my knees don't bother me at all. It's my lower thighs that really get cold, up to about the halfway point between my knees and my hip joint.

As for double-socks and such, I've tried wearing sock liners under my kilt hose. The same ones I tried wearing under my thicker winter hiking socks. But my experience was less than satisfactory. Sock liners do tend to bunch up inside my shoe, even when the kilt hose are fine. And the fact that sock liners are usually made out of thin, slick material, makes them slippery inside my kilt hose. It's uncomfortable for me when walking. Plus, despite their advertised benefits, they tend to trap sweat inside the liners as if I were wearing a plastic bag around my feet. So I pretty much don't use them at all, either for hiking or for kilt-wearing.

[Angstrom]

I'm nw to kilts & hose, but I often wear thin wicking sock liners with winter wool socks. I think they help protect the socks from my feet (toenails, sweat, etc.), and they're a lot cheaper to replace.

As for soccer hose, I'll admit to wearing them instead of "proper" hose for kilted hiking, especially on soggy days. Layering them under wool hose seems perfectly reasonable.

[ShaunMaxwell]

At the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games this past summer, I ended up doubling up the kilt hose, but for different reasons: The seemingly endless rain had turned the grounds into a bit of a quagmire. Fortunately, I'd thought to bring my Wellies with me. They're a bit roomy in the foot, and I didn't want to mess up my handknit hose that I was wearing (you know, on the off chance that it ever stopped raining long enough for me to put on some proper shoes), so I pulled on a pair of the inexpensive Brewin hose (available on ebay) over the handknits to protect them. It certainly seemed to do the trick, though you might have to wear a larger shoe size with two pair of hose on.

Caveat: The handknits in question fit like a glove, so there was no chance of bunching up.

SM

[ForresterModern]

My use of sock liners predates my kilt wearing era by at least two decades, having started doing so first while winter hiking, then while hiking at all, then while skiing or snowboarding, then basically anytime I had on a relatively thick pair of socks for any reason, and IMHO it is a more comfortable feeling and I get far less sores and blisters from prolonged use. When it came to kilts and wool hose I just naturally turned to my sock liners, and it is a rare day when I am kilted that I do not have them on.

In my experience the sock liners do precisely what I expect them to do---the do allow moisture to wick through to the outer sock, so my kilt hose do get damp if I am sweating. However, the liner traps the oils and salty portions of that sweat so that, yes, my good kilt hose are spared that exposure for the most part and require fewer and less frequent washings (great for the lazy among us like Ron and myself). The little extra cushioning, the little extra slip between layers, and the separation of my feet from potentially itchy wool hose (especially some of the hand knits and argylls and diced pairs I own) are also great benefits.

In my opinion, unless one is wearing their hose for rough duty while kilted---camping, bushwhacking, hunting, long distance heavy pack hiking, etc...---the most wear and tear my hose seem to suffer is when they go through the laundry, even if my wife sets it on extreme delicate/handwash cycle. My hose never look as good coming out of the washer as they did going in, even after a good wearing. So I tend to wear them at least a couple times between washings, facilitated by the use of liners.

[MichaelPHahn]

Joining this thread a bit late, but I completely concur with those suggesting that purpose built liners are helpful for many reasons. In my experience, "soccer" (football for most of you outside the U.S.) socks tend to be synthetic or worse, a cotton blend, and therefore are not good for cold weather. I teach me Boy Scouts that "cotton kills". I almost always wear any wool socks with a thin liner for comfort and to prevent wear on both the socks and on my feet. Just me two cents...

[Blake Roth]

Before I joined this forum, I had the misfortune to have found Sportkilts'offer on kilt hose too tempting, only to findout they are those athletic socks. I inprovised by using them in this role. I hate to waste.