Have We Won Acceptance of Kilts?

[Riverkilt]

Just back from the walk to Horseshoe Bend Overlook on the Colorado River. This trail is packed with tourists - even now. Always before I'd get many comments on my kilt. Stopped, asked to take pics, questions. This weekend in my Royal Air Force tartan kilt only one lady asked about the kilt (What is it called?) and "Can I take a photo.

One lady out of hundreds out on the trail from around the world.

[OC Richard]

It surprises me, actually, how little notice I often garner.

Is it seeing various ethnic dress in TV and films?

Or indeed in person! Around here seeing people in Indian ethnic dress is an everyday sight. No wonder Highland Dress hardly gets a second glance.

[Macman]

Ron, if I may say, you're looking very svelt!

[Steve Ashton]

Ron, I'll second David's comment. You look really good.

But - about winning acceptance - I would say that as long as people still find a kilt unusual enough to make comments or ask for photos, the kilt has not yet reached 'acceptance'.
I'll count acceptance when no one even notices the kilt as being outside 'normal' enough to comment.

[Jock Scot]

That’s an interesting question Ron that has touched on something I was thinking about as I drove home from town the other day.

I suppose different areas and countries are dealing with Covid in different ways and it appears to me that the UK in general is rather more rigorous with its “lockdown” procedures than other parts of the world. So for the last year we in the Highlands, apart from a couple of months in the summer, have not seen visitors.Even the locals generally only do essential shopping, little or no visiting of friends and family and so on. So the visitors are noticeably absent.

When I was in town the other day doing my essential shopping it suddenly dawned on me that the locals made absolutely no comment about my kilt attire. Why should they? It has been always that way with the residents. Frankly it is rather refreshing to go shopping or for a stroll in the countryside without being bothered with smiling sweetly into a camera lense. At a guess it shortens my shopping time by a good twenty minutes or so.

So what am I saying? The locals for sure see me———-and other locals——-dressed in in our assorted Highland attire going about our business without comment. In passing, a kilted gentleman is still in a small minority in the Highlands. I and the locals certainly don’t wear the kilt as a “ look at me” item. They, I assume, accept it as a norm which of course it is. It is the strangers who think the kilt is out of the ordinary and it is the almost total lack of visitors that makes that point very clear.

For what it is worth , I really cannot imagine the kilt being worn out of its natural surroundings as being seen as anything other than an oddity by those viewing the sight--------I most certainly do!----------- and they will continue so to do for many many decades to come and maybe for ever.

[KiltedDixon]

Looking good Riverkilt!

Interesting observation in a superb setting.

[OC Richard]

I and the locals certainly don’t wear the kilt as a “ look at me” item.

That's a super observation.

It's the "nub of it" as Abraham Lincoln would say, the litmus test of the dynamic between the wearer and the community the wearer moves about in.

It's my avoidance of "look at me" in the places I move about in which has resulted in me only wearing Highland Dress when I'm playing the pipes as public performance, or participating in a specifically Scottish-themed event where Highland Dress is called for.

But I do have to travel between home and these public events! So I might pop into a Starbucks kilted. Such times are the only ones I'm kilted amongst an unsuspecting public, and happily I don't get a second glance most of the time. No smiling for photos! No questions about my kilt!

I would think it would be far more difficult to escape notice in the Highlands of Scotland, when it's swarming with Americans who prepared for their Scotland holiday by binge-watching four series of Outlander.

[Jock Scot]

To be fair OCR, it is not just Americans who reach for the cameras, but almost any country you would care to mention outside Scotland.

[Tomo]

The last time I was back in the UK - last October for a bit of a fact finder for a little distillery-based tour I have put together in Speyside (is 7 distilleries, a cooperage and some other activities a bit much for a 5 day trip - nah, didn't think so) before heading down to Manchester to visit family - one thing that struck me was the restrictions in Scotland were both more stringent and better adhered to than south of the border.

In terms of kilt wearing - whilst waiting to pick up my tour group at Edinburgh airport (pre-covid days) an older Scottish lady approached me and commented how nice it was to see someone properly attired. Later on (we had an enforced stay in Edinburgh for 5 or 6 hours - as KLM had managed to loose the entire group's bags in Schiphol - rather than heading onto Kilmartin Glen and Oban) I was waiting for some of the group on the Royal Mile when a young lady enquired about the tartan I was wearing - she worked in Geoffrey (Tailor) and had nipped out for smoke. Oddly enough both of these "encounters" were with locals not tourists - not that I had to smile for photo's mind you.

That said, I was in Edinburgh a few years back for a Scotland v Australia match. As it was the first time in Scotland for both of my Aussie mates and my girlfriend we took in some of the sights. Whilst on the Esplanade a girl asked if she could have picture with me (in my kilt) and one of my friends (who was wearing a kangaroo costume - I guess he was pretty much in the "look at me" camp). She stood in the middle and was over-joyed at the photo-op, commenting that it was "dream come true". The mind boggles!!

[xpc316e]

I live in East Anglia, the bit that juts out into the North Sea to the north-east of London, and have only seen two other kilt wearers outside of formal functions, such as weddings. Having said that, my kilt does not seem to arouse a great deal of interest. I do receive favorable comments from a few people, and nothing derogatory has ever been said to me, even by groups of teenage boys. I suppose that one could say that although kilt wearing here is a rarity, it is very much acceptable.

A couple of years ago I visited Prague and the city was full of Chinese tourists who were fascinated by my kilt. They were very polite, and would stare but not take photographs. When I signed to them that I was willing to be photographed I had queues of women (and a few men) who wanted to stand next to me and be captured in an image. It was great fun for me, and for them. Even though there was the language barrier, we enjoyed the moment.