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

[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.

[Troglodyte]

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.

The recorded origin to this 'traditional' mode is the powers-that-be behind the Northern Meeting.

Some time before 1910 (and they had been discussing and practising the style for some time by then, and MacLeay's portraits show exaamples), they decided and annoucned what the new 'correct' form was to be for the new century, and we can see how sucessful they were.

They were railing against the overly elaborate styles of the Victorial era, which the new Edwardians seemed only too happy to reject generally, and not just with Highland dress. The expressed idea or motivation behind it all, was for simpler and easier (and so more comfortable and relaxed) modes of dress.

Although they didn't quite throw out the baby with the bath water, they did leave the baby with only a shallow puddle to bathe in. Or so it seems sometimes.

It's curious. When looking at class distinctions as shown in styles of dress, a recurring complaint by the lower-classes was that the upper-classes were spoiling it for them - they have nothing to aspire to if the upper levels are wilfully lowering themselves.