Hi guys

While these may be the traditional rules, the rules do change. Before the 1950s, female Highland dancers were not allowed to compete in a kilt - they were required to wear the full skirt Aboyne costume. When the rule changed in the 50s, women competed in the full male costume, including sporran (I've seen pictures of my daughter's Highland dance teacher as a young girl in such an outfit). Now, the female Highland dancers are _required_ to compete in a kilt (no sporran or belt), a velvet vest, and a white blouse with lace.

As more pipe bands have added women, they, too, wear traditional kilts. Our band currently is about 1/3 women, and our Grade 4 drum corps is _entirely_ female. If we were not "allowed" to wear kilts, we would also not be piping or drumming, and that seems silly to prevent someone from playing in a pipe band because they are not "allowed" to wear a kilt.

As for white socks, all you have to do is go to The British Shop web site or the Tartantown web site or Burnett's and Struth web site, and you'll see that they are not lazy about carrying kilt hose in lots of colors. You can pick anything from white to black and lots of colors. Over the years, our band has worn red and white diced hose (now _those_ are the _most_ traditional of all kilt hose, but _no one_ wears them any more!!!), slate blue, off white hand knit, off white machine knit, and now bright white popcorn top 100% cotton hose. We've chosen the latter partly because they look really sharp with our kilts and partly for simplicity - they wash easily (and consequently stay looking nicer) and are less expensive. If white hose aren't supposed to be worn with kilts, there are a lot of bands out there like ours who have made an "unallowable" choice!!!

As I say, rules change.

Barb

Barb