Personal flair

[Terry Searl]

Good questions. Not easy to answer though! I will try to give you a few impressions though.

It all depends whether the Scottish Mid 30's come from the Highlands and from a kilt wearing family, or they come from the Lowlands and from a non kilt wearing family. The demarcation lines are not that precisely marked in real life, but as a huge generalisation it actually runs fairly true.

If a Mid 30's lad from a kilt wearing family then access to Grand parents, Great Grand parents and even Great Great Grand parents kilt attire in the form of sporrans, sporran chains, bespoke kilts are available and even more importantly, generations of kilt attire know how. The end result is that the mid 30's lad from this sort of background, ends up dressing pretty traditionally.

Those from a non kilt wearing back ground who actually want to wear the kilt often buy the cheaper off the peg kilt attire, hire it when needed, or don't ever bother with the kilt.

Remember that the utility style kilts are not seen often in Scotland-----I think that I have only seen three here. Bespoke kilt attire is still the aim of many young kilt wearers, they will often not buy kilt attire until they can buy the best. I think, particularly in the Lowlands where kilt attire knowledge is scarce then, the North American attitude to kilts is understandably the easiest option.

Now, these are my impressions based on observations that I have gained over the years and of course there will be exceptions to what I have said, as there always are. However, if you go to the search section on this website look for two threads started by me "Jock Scot" titled "Food For Thought" and "Food For Thought Two(F4T2)" . They are couple of amateur surveys that I did in Scotland which should not be regarded as to what ALL kilt wearers in Scotland think, nevertheless you may find the answers to the questions enlightening. Let me know what you think?

I don't always agree with what you say Jock. Being a Canadian and wearing a kilt because I want to, not wearing it to imitate a highland person, but wearing it for my own pure pleasure and for the most part semi traditionally (heh! heh!), by that I mean with some personal "flairs".

Like I said, I am not trying to imitate a highland person, my heritage is; maternal Grand Parents were Scottish (Glasgow) and Paternal grand parents Irish (Dublin).

I wear my kilted attire for my own sheer pleasure and really am not concerned much about what others think.
A major concern though is that in my wearing of my kilted attire that I show the utmost respect for the tradition and heritage of wearing a kilt.

Having said the above, I would sincerely recommend that everyone should read Your archived "Food For thought" and "Food for thought Two (F4T2)"
To me in your survey number one, it was predominately of Older folk, (Thank-you Mrs Jock for putting the questions together) but in both cases the questions really did show how the kilt is worn in the highlands and how it is thought of by others, sincere others, rather than just the pub or sports crowd

Thanx again Jock it was very well put together, The comments to the thread proved that .......and if the moderators don't mind my saying it should be put back out for the " newbies" read
If Jock hadn't mentioned it, I would never have found it ........sometimes there are just too many sub headings to look into and I would imagine that is especially so for those that are new to this site