Classic kilt style - as seen at large this summer in Scotland

[Troglodyte]

Interesting that patterned hose, considered a faux pas in Day Dress for over a century, have recently returned to favour.

I'm not sure faux pas is correct here, but I get fully what you mean.

There was a great back-lash in the early years of the 20th century against the strictures of dress that generally prevailed (particularly in Britain) during the Victorian era. And Highland dress seems to have where the simpler forms were actively encouraged.

Myself, I was advised as a budding kilter that diced and tartan hose were the only 'correct' forms with the kilt, but that plainer versions were optional, according to occasion or activity. But that was by my Victorian grandparents, so make of that what you will!

The young princes (whose style we still try to follow) were gretly criticised at the time for their dressing-down fashions, but the outfits of the Prince of Wales and Duke of York (later Edward VIII and George VI) are now thought the quintessential style - and not just their Highland dress.

If we see these things in equivalent modern terms, the universal wearing of jeans, t-shirts and hoodies is given no thought, but their sartorial status equivalents of tweeds and cords are now considered dressing-up - no longer the rural workwear of the common man that they once were.

Personally, I generally wear single day-wear coloured hose, but, having a good selection of diced and tartan hose also (some of them quite old and inheritted), I have no qualms about wearing them during the day if I fancy. Mass-produced plain hose are fine, but diced to match your kilt gives you a sense or moral (or is that morale) advantage.

It's all part of the game.

[Hirsty]

Most chaps I know will go kilted to the Highland Games. The level of scruffiness seems to be age related though. As most men get their kilt for their 18th birthday (or inherited), you might see the younger lads in jeans

[OC Richard]

Interesting that I also got my first kilt at 18!

I had just got my first set of pipes, so the kilt had to follow.

About patterned hose with Day Dress, the writers of style guides from 1914 through the 1950s consistently insist that self-coloured hose to "tone in with" the jacket are "proper" or "correct" (they love to use those words then!).

Now, in Victorian times Highland Dress didn't have rigid divisions between various modes of dress.

Yes, there's a Day Dress of sorts with tweed jackets, but self-coloured hose or patterned hose were deemed equally proper, as were long hair sporrans, even white ones with silver tops. (True that it was popular to wear brown long hair sporrans with leather tops with tweed.)

And quite plain jackets were often worn with elaborate accessories for Evening.

However near the start of the 20th century and especially just after WWI Highland Dress sorted itself into rigid distinct categories of Day and Evening, each with dedicated shoes, hose, sporrans, jackets, and even kilts. (Writers mention over and over that heavy worsted kilts are for Day, finer kilts, often Saxony, for Evening.)

So to see Day Dress as actually worn to a Highland Games, in this case Oban, here are photos showing every decade from the 1920s through the 1990s (photos from the 1940s are rarer for obvious reasons).

It makes a nice overview of Traditional Highland Day Dress.

[Flotineer]

What is the second-from-the-right man wearing in the 1935 pic? Is it a long plaid wrapped around him in some manner?

[Padraicog]

For Pipers, the 1935 picture is interesting - in the second rank starting left is Archibald Campbell of Kilberry, and next to him is James Campbell, his son. James appears in the 1962 picture sandwiched between DR MacLennan (half-brother of GS MacLennan) left and Archie Kenneth (called "Compo" by Andrew McNeill: you need to have watched Last of the Summer Wine a BBC TV series to get that allusion) on the right

[Padraicog]

One of my friends describes most of the people in the photographs as Landless Lairds or Surrey Highanders

[Jock Scot]

One of my friends describes most of the people in the photographs as Landless Lairds or Surrey Highanders

The few that I know and some that I recognise, including the Duke of Argyll in the pictures can hardly be described as landless!

[Padraicog]

Jock

But you don't know them all (neither do I) but I know a few who fit the description of Landless

[Jock Scot]

Jock

But you don't know them all (neither do I) but I know a few who fit the description of Landless

I understand what you are saying , but in this case I cannot agree with you.

[Troglodyte]

What is the second-from-the-right man wearing in the 1935 pic? Is it a long plaid wrapped around him in some manner?

It is a style of wrapping the plaid that is seldom seen (carrying a plaid is rare these days, anyway) but was favoured by some at one time.

I have tried it for style myself, and find it keeps the plaid neat and close - no flapping or blowing about - but it is bothersome to put on and off. Draped over the left shouder is by far the quickest and easiest method.

Another plaid style is often seen in old (18th century) paintings of Scottish pastoral life - drovers and the like - where the plaid is draped over the left shoulder and taken across the body both front and back and tied in a flat knot at the right hip. I have only seen this method shown on men in breeks, not kilted.