Outlander Wardrobe and language

[figheadair]

Thing I was thinking about, regarding Outlander, is that the boundary between Scots and Gaelic would have been much further south in 1743 than today. Would that have meant Gaelic speakers learning their English from Scots speakers, rather than from Standard English speakers as it has been in the more recent past?

The other thing to bear in mind is that in the mid-18th century there were several Gaelic dialects that have effectively disappeared; Perthshire for instance. Until the late 1800s the Gaelic 'border' in my part of the country was a mile or so north and west of Crieff and both languages would have been spoken locally, both by some, a few solely Gaelic and the majority would have been mostly English speakers by then. And in each case the accent would have been Perthshire/Central Highlands. In Prebble's Mutiny he cites an example of a Highlander being quizzed about what another might have said: the former claimed that he did not fully understand the latter's Gaelic which is entirely possible. Uist Gaelic for example, is much more lilting than that of the mainland and probably has its intonation heavily influenced by Norse. It’s quite possible for a mainland speaker would not easily understand a Uist Gael until he’d got his ear in so to speak.

[OC Richard]

Thanks for those insights!

Now back to the costumes of Outlander, the inevitable marketing has begun

http://www.kilts-n-stuff.com/outland...ander-tartans/

Basically all MacKay in Reproduction colours, with some added lines here and there.

Here's MacKay (weathered/reproduction)



Here's Outlander

[KiltedKnome]

Thanks for those insights!

Now back to the costumes of Outlander, the inevitable marketing has begun

Here's Outlander

Question .... is the hem fringed? Looks like it to my older eyes....

[MacKenzie]

Appears to be.

[figheadair]

Question .... is the hem fringed? Looks like it to my older eyes....

It's not a hem or it wouldn't be fringed, nor is it a selvedge as there would have been on cloth of the period. I don't know whethrr this was done by choice or through ignorance but it just so wrong.

[KiltedKnome]

It😥's not a hem or it wouldn't be fringed, nor is it a selvedge as there would have been on cloth of the period. I don't know whethrr this was done by choice or through ignorance but it just so wrong.

Hmm, maybe the idea was to make it look like a frequently used garment, with fraying and unraveling occurring at the edges. Reminds me a bit of what my blue jeans look like after several years of wear.

[figheadair]

Hmm, maybe the idea was to make it look like a frequently used garment, with fraying and unraveling occurring at the edges. Reminds me a bit of what my blue jeans look like after several years of wear.

May be, but that would be a wrong assumption. I have never seen an old pliad of kilt uniformly fray along the who,e selvedge. Another examp,e of fictionalised history.

[Pleater]

I have a kilt with a rather less obvious fringe - the edge was alternate orange and white and a harsh man made fibre holding the weft threads secure.

To say it stood out is only the half of it and folding it under to make a hem resulted in an edge like a saw blade.
This is the before and after


I took a pin and small sharp scissors and removed it.

It could be that the Outlander kilt had a similar problem which was dealt with in the same way.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[OC Richard]

I had just assumed that the costumer hadn't known that the bottom edge of a kilt is selvedge.

On another costume note, I noticed that two current shows which feature 18th century British soldiers, Poldark and Outlander, have the British red-coats odd vivid shades of red that, as far as I know, never existed.

I've seen hundreds of actual old British uniforms dating from the 18th century up through more recent times, but never seen the highly-saturated nearly-fuchsia colour used in Poldark. The Outlander red-coats aren't quite that vivid but still an anachronistic shade.

I get the "story-telling" side of things: in Outlander the vivid red of the British stands in stark contrast to the soft earthy tones of the Highlanders. But still it's jarring to the eye.

I can't find a still from Poldark which shows the shade as vivid and purplish as it appears on the screen, but here goes



This photo well shows the shade I've seen in original officer's uniforms, a rather orange-ish red