Why traditional?

[Alan H]

I have never personally been accused of dressing like a laird, but I do think that statement funny.

Do you think if I dressed like this I would be accused of such...



Heck even the laird gets naked to bath... seems that there is very little I can wear and not be like a laird

Lovely family, Isaac! You're a lucky man!

[Jock Scot]

I think this "dress like a Laird" thing has got out of hand on this website. It may have started as a throw away description in the mists of time perhaps on this website, but it seems to have become an almost derogatory term here now and its not helpful.

ANYONE who is going to wear lounge/business suit equivalent of kilt attire, for example to a Highland Games, will wear a tartan kilt, tweed jacket, wool hose pulled up to somewhere just below the knee, some form of smart and sensible leather shoes, a conservative shirt and a tie, The bonnet and cromach do have a REAL purpose on occasion too. The only difference is that the Duke will probably have his own bonnet badge and possibly one, two, three eagle feathers sticking out of his bonnet and rightly or wrongly in Scotland he is entitled so to do by law. Apart from that, if the Duke or Dustman wish to dress up smartly for the occasion then they will wear pretty much the same.

Now, those who choose to dress for the occasion because that is what the event requires are doing right, absolutely right in that circumstance. Those who overdress , or underdress for an event are doing wrong of that there is no question. Does it matter? That is down to the individual and their personal pride and off course there are your hosts to consider too. To make ones dress choices for any particular event out of knowledge is where I come from and the ability to adjust ones attire accordingly is a perfectly normal social requirement and NOT a form of social snobbery. I also quite accept that there are times when the proper attire is not available to us and there is a choice open to us for major occasions, buy, beg, borrow, or, er um ----- steal the correct attire, or don't go and for minor events then doing the best you can in the circumstances will get you by in some circumstances.

Thinking on about this. The Laird, or anyone else who has a duty to perform at a Highland Games for example, will be dressed properly to do justice to the occasion, overdressing or underdressing for them, is not doing right for the event, the spectators, the compettitors or the sponsors, in short, they have a responsibility to dress appropriately. For the rest of us those "pressures" and influences are not there, so the latitude of attire choices are so much wider should we so choose, some do, some don't. In fact, I have seen more than one Laird who was just there because he wanted to be and with no responsibilities in the event dressed in chords/jeans/shorts/kilt, no tie and rolled up shirt sleeves!

[MacGumerait]

Alan , the pic is of The Duke of Argyll and his family .... or perhaps you knew that and I'm getting too tired to understand the post ... getting a bit late !

Cheers , Mike

[Tobus]

What absolutely mystifies me are some members here and others that I have seen with my own eyes, who dress up to the nines in tweed jacket, tweed waistcoat, 8 yards heavy weight wool tartan, wool hose and topped off with a woollen bonnet in 90 degree temperatures-----no wonder they need a cromach to hold them up! I do wonder if common sense has fallen foul of wanting to dress the part?

Those of us who live in warmer climes often struggle with this, Jock. If we were going to dress strictly for comfort and practical convenience all the time, we'd end up wearing flip-flops, Bermuda shorts, and loose Hawaiian style shirts like they do in South Florida. That's not really my thing, though, and never has been. Everyone, to some degree, sacrifices comfort for the sake of style or decorum. Casual and comfortable, in certain contexts, equals slovenly. Sadly, that slovenly trend is taking over our society.

90 degrees is blazing hot to someone from the UK. To a native Texan, it's a mildly warm day. Even when it's 100 degrees outdoors, my casual/comfortable dress is often boots, jeans, a denim or duck-cloth shirt, and a felt hat. We often talk about the "THCD" style originating in the early to mid 1900s, but if we take a look at traditional Texas style dress from the same era, it's very similar in many ways. Folks wore clothing that, by today's standards, would be uncomfortable and hot. They wore wool trousers, ties, vests & jackets, etc. Did their common sense fall afoul of wanting to dress the part too? No, it was just how they dressed to meet social expectations. And many still dress that way, at least in my part of Texas where cowboy culture is still very much a part of everyday life.

I guess what I'm saying is that you personally might recoil at the idea of wearing certain clothing on a 90 degree day, but to others it's not as much of an issue. Trust me when I say that an 8-yard kilt and woollen hose are much cooler than wearing boots and jeans in the Texas heat!

I do agree on the tweed waistcoat, jacket, and tie issue. Typically I will wear these to our Highland Games that are held in early April and November, when the temperature is very mild. This year some of us are planning on gathering in August, and it would indeed be foolish to wear such things in the worst part of summer. But I'm sure we will still choose to wear something that pays respect to THCD, rather than showing up in flip-flops and Bermuda shorts.

[Father Bill]

The comments about kilts and heat remind me of an interesting interchange that made me smile several summers ago. At our "Vacation Bible School" - a one week daytime activity at our small rural church, a retired teacher was leading sessions on a theme of "Children Praying Around the World." The nation of investigation that day was China, but I had worn my clergy tartan kilt with a grey clergy shirt for personal preference, for fun, and because of the oppressive heat.

She: "And now, Father Bill will explain why he's wearing a kilt."
Me: "Because it's an awful lot cooler than pants or even shorts."
She: "Oh."

End of discussion.

[IsaacW]

Lovely family, Isaac! You're a lucky man!

Thanks Alan. That photo above is actually His Grace, Torquhil Ian Campbell, the Duke of Argyll. I posted it as a commentary on the way the laird dresses.

Anyway, I am (in my mind) a lucky man with a great family. Here are a couple photos of MY family...

[Jock Scot]

Tobus, I am always amazed at the constitution of you chaps out in that sort of Texas heat and then to add layers of wool into the equation just is beyond my comprehension. Anything over 70 degrees F and I start to falter. I endured your sort of heat for a few months in Western Australia and I must confess that I could not wait to get out of it!

[CMcG]

Traditions are the result of cultural values and are maintained by social practice. For example, dressing at the appropriate level of formality for a given event shows one to not only be an insider, but also demonstrates one's respect for local mores.

Taking the Highland dress tradition into other contexts—whether that be the Lowlands or overseas—can create a variety of disjunctures. These frictions are the result of contextual differences in culture, society, class, and climate. Age and experience are also important factors.

I would argue that the danger of "Lairdism" is in reifying THCD, rather than treating it as a coherent, flexible set of practices. This is particularly true of people who are not themselves hereditary tradition bearers and have been acculturated into the practice, but may even affect people with kilted families when they find themselves in unfamiliar surroundings. One needs to gracefully adapt one's attire to the situation, not insist on some sort of rules.

Traditions evolve slowly, and so it may be possible to look at a photo from the 1920s and find that many people still dress that way today. It is also possible to look at another photo from the same time period and see things that are generally no longer done. This is where an informed and critical eye is necessary in order to determine if emulating the photo is participating in tradition or engaging in historical reenactment.

[tundramanq]

Jock, the big difference between you and Tobus's climates is the humidity. My climate is desert also but at a higher altitude of 5500 feet. In this climate the humidity is normally less than 30% and many times less than 10% and air pressure is about 2 psi lower, 70 F can actually be chilling if there is any breeze. Perspiration is instantly evaporated and you never feel hot unless a rare moist weather system is working through pushing up humidity. Direct solar heating is a bigger issue and is the reason we wear brimmed hats and lighter colors to deflect it from the skin.

On the thread, I agree with most that has been said. I adapt to the formality of situation, modified
to fit the climate. The whole "dress like a laird" thing never crossed my mind. Although I know that kilts have been a fashion thing of the elite for the last couple centuries, I think it is a lot more affordable to the rabble now.

[Tobus]

Tobus, I am always amazed at the constitution of you chaps out in that sort of Texas heat and then to add layers of wool into the equation just is beyond my comprehension. Anything over 70 degrees F and I start to falter. I endured your sort of heat for a few months in Western Australia and I must confess that I could not wait to get out of it!

Well, to be fair, it goes both ways. We Texans are acclimated to the heat, but put us in a cold environment and we turn into weenies (at least most of us who aren't from North Texas). I reach for a jacket when it dips below about 65 degrees. The kind of cold, wet, blustery weather you get in the Highlands would have me retreating indoors for 8 months out of the year. And the early descriptions of Highlanders sleeping on the bare ground, covered in snow, just wrapped up in their plaids, is unthinkable for me. I've only seen real snow a couple of times in my life, and it was when I was outside of Texas.

To stay on topic, we're all used to a particular environment in which we live. Wearing traditional Highland attire is obviously more suited to the Highlands than some other locations, but it doesn't necessarily mean that one has lost all common sense if we wear it in an environment where we're still comfortable, even if a native Highlander wouldn't be.

The most recent time I wore my kilt was at the Highland Games in San Antonio last month. While I typically do prefer the tweedy day wear look, I chose to go more casual and practical due to a forecast for thunderstorms and a concern for mud. I don't have any photos, but I wore a short-sleeved linen collared button-up shirt, Balmoral, no jacket, no tie, no cromach, with boots and my canvas leggings. I didn't want to ruin a good pair of shoes, hose, or have to worry about my vintage tweed jacket. So I went more for a nod-to-traditional-yet-firmly-practical approach. The storms didn't materialize, but I still felt comfortable with the decision not to get all tweeded up.

*edited to add: And if I'm being honest, I had been up late the night before doing some drinking and playing music, and didn't feel like getting fussy with my attire. Surely there's some Highland tradition involved there!