USA Highland Dress 1978

[OC Richard]

I suppose we are all creatures of the time and place we grew up, and in kilt matters of the kiltwearing that existed at the time and place we began doing that.

As I've mentioned, when I began wearing Highland Dress it was the traditional sort because that's all there was. One couldn't choose a utility kilt or sport kilt or casual kilt because these had yet to be invented.

Here on the West Coast of the USA in the 1970s, unless you were lucky enough to live near a brick-and-mortar Highland Dress shop, the major source was The Scottish Shopper mail order catalogue.

My father ordered my first set of pipes from them in 1975. Then came my first Highland Dress items: a Balmoral bonnet, a plain leather sporran, kilt hose, and some tartan yardage from which my Grandmother made my first real-tartan kilt.

I wish I had that 1975 catalogue! It was like the Sears Wishbook to me. It was my introduction to Highland Dress: the page of kilt jackets, the page of sporrans, the page of sterling silver kilt pins, the pages of silver-mounted dirks and sgian dubhs.

A longtime piping friend came to the rescue yesterday by loaning me his 1978 catalogue.

So here it is, a snapshot of the Highland Dress that was available to us in the 1970s.



The only kilts they sold were kilts. It was understood that they were full-yardage handsewn Scottish-woven-fabric kilts, there being no other at that time.

All of the jackets and accessories were Scottish-made. This was before the Pakistani Highland Dress industry made inroads here (if indeed it existed then).

Here are the jackets





Note that the black Evening Argyll, nearly universal today, does not appear. The first time I saw one was when I saw Alasdair Fraser fiddling for a San Francisco RSCDS dance around 1980. By 1990 most Pipe Bands had switched to them.

Also absent is the Sherrifmuir Doublet. I have still yet to see that in any vintage catalogue.

Here are the sporrans shown. Note that the sporran styles and selection is nearly identical to those of the 1920s.

Still only brown Day Dress sporrans (here called Field Sporrans) are shown, though this catalogue does mention two styles which are available in black.





The most striking thing about this 1978 catalogue is how little the offerings differed from those being sold by firms in Scotland in the 1920s and 1930s.

For comparison here are some sporrans offered by Glasgow and Edinburgh shops in the 1930s





I don't know what the shops in Scotland were offering in the 1970s but as you can see we here in the USA were buying and wearing Highland Dress which had remained unchanged since the 1920s.

It goes to show the Punctuated Equilibrium of Highland Dress, which remained fairly stable (though with tremendous variety) from c1850 through c1900, then underwent a huge transformation, then again remained stable from c1920 through the 1970s.

[kingandrew]

This is great! I'd love to see more, especially pages with illustrations to help me "picture" it in my mind.

The only source of info on Highland dress I had back in the 1970s was a magazine ad for Dewar's Whiskey, which labeled the various elements of their Highlander mascot's attire: bonnet, plaid, sporran, spats, etc. It was a good-looking outfit, to be sure, but I had no idea at the time where to acquire such a thing.

Andrew

[OC Richard]

Dewar's used various illustrations of kilted men, military and civilian, in their adverts but they used this one by far the most



I think they more or less lifted the image from this postcard. It's the Drum Major of the Drums & Pipes of The Gordon Highlanders.



The Dewar's illustrator got most of the uniform correct, but as you see they made little changes here and there.

(BTW the postcard calls the band the Pipes & Drums but the Gordon Highlanders called them the Drums & Pipes.)

[Dr Bee]

Aha, Dewar's White Label - this along with White Horse is one of my favourite blends. I almost always have a bottle on the go at home and I've found that while it's far from consistent the occasional bottle is as smooth a whisky as you'll ever find.

I recently tried a Dewars single malt called Aberfeldy - sadly it was a disappointment - very rough.

My other favourite blend, White Horse, has a very interesting flavour but I suspect it's not in continuous production as it can be hard to find sometimes.

[kingandrew]

The ad definitely used that image of the drum major.

I found a picture of the ad, but it is too small to read: https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/p...ntic-Color.jpg

Here is a link to a photo of a laminated version of the ad on display at the "House of Scotland" cottage in San Diego's Balboa Park. It is at least legible:
https://beautifulbalboapark.files.wo...-and-sword.jpg

Looking at it now, it seems to be very focused on small details of the uniform. In my mind I recall something about the spats, but don't see it here. So perhaps there was another version, or perhaps my mind is mis-remembering (entirely possible given that I recall examining the picture in the living room of a house that we moved out of when I was ten years old). Still, it clearly made an impression on me. And certainly the gentleman in the picture looks splendid.

It would be many years before I found myself in an actual kilt shop, face to face with many of these items. And at that time, I was rather broke and amazed at the cost of proper Scottish kit. I've done my best to rectify things in the 20 years since then.

Andrew

[Jock Scot]

Hold on a minute! I think one needs to remember that those pictures depicting band attire is not Traditional Highland Civilian Dress(THCD). If you are wanting band attire then all well and good, but if not, those adverts are far from helpful.

[Dr Bee]

It would be many years before I found myself in an actual kilt shop, face to face with many of these items

Over the years I have visited the premises of many Highland outfitters (kilt shops) from Annan in Southern Scotland to Inverness in the North along with countless in-between. I have never yet come face-to-face with any of these items, most of which would be issued from Regimental stores as 'kit' or obtained from specialist suppliers. Even his kilt would, if he were real, differ from a civilian kilt - although I will admit a handful of tailors still offer to make the 'military box-pleat' for civilian wearers.

[OC Richard]

Hold on a minute! I think one needs to remember that those pictures depicting band attire is not Traditional Highland Civilian Dress(THCD). If you are wanting band attire then all well and good, but if not, those adverts are far from helpful.

Yes of course!

But the topic of the Dewar's Highlander advertising character came up, and I wanted to point out that he was probably inspired by a postcard of the Gordon Highlanders Drum-Major.

Dewar's did use other images of men in Highland Dress in their adverts, some in civilian Highland Dress, some in Highland military uniform. Those gents came and went. For whatever reason the Gordons Drum Major clicked with the public and he stayed on, becoming more or less the Dewar's logo.

[kingandrew]

Jock, you are certainly right. This image shows a very high style band uniform, rather than something a typical highland gent might wear on a given day. I am surprised at how focused the labels are on odd specifics of the uniform rather than more useful info on standard elements like the kilt, sporran, and hose.

But when I was a wee lad of 10, this and a copy of a book illustrating clan tartans were all the resources on kilting I had available to me. We didn't have Xmarks in those "primitive" pre-internet days

Andrew

[Standard]

What great copies of that old catalogue, do you have any additional pages to share? Nothing today can compare to filling out an order form, or possibly calling in your order, mailing the store a check (or a bank cashier's check which would clear faster) and then wait weeks for your order to arrive. Luckily Amazon isn't in the kilt making business!