Underkilt

[MacSimoin]

"Undykilt", hahahaha...oh but that was funny!

[jkdesq]

To each his own and everything, but I just don't understand the point of underkilts.

I had a quick look at the website and something told me that these under-pseudo-quasi-kilts are for cold weather, but I just don't see it. I live in Canada. Once more, I live on inland, middle of the continent, side the Rocky Mountains. I think I understand cooler weather. Now, I make a point of going kilted to one or two Burns Nights in January in Calgary. So, I know what it is like to be kilted in cold weather and yes, I make a point of minimizing my time outside.

However, it is not the coldness of being outside that I am most concerned about. Once in doors, the problem is heat. Wearing all the wool, with all those pleats, in a room heated to 19 to 21 degrees Celsius, it gets rather warm. Add another layer of cotton to that, well, likely wouldn't make much of difference, but it wounld help. I'm not going to remove my underkilt in the cloakroom either. I really hope that this message does not lead some generous but miss guided sole to invent the nitted kilt cozy. I can picture it now, some sort of poncho for your waist.

Outdoors. A thin layer of cotton, not bunched up into a crotch is not going to make one little difference to January breezes gusting up .... up ......, well you know.

OK, so maybe January Burns Nights in Canada is the extreme example. But I think if someone lives in a more moderate climate, they could have the polycotton kilt for the summer and a real (ie. wool) kilt for the winter. I don't understand having to add another garment into the mix.

[An t-Ileach]

Reading back through this thread I noted the following interesting statements:

James: "I was reading THE SOMME by Peter Hart and happened to look at the pictures [Ok before colouring them in] and there between pages 288 and 289 was a picture of a kilted unit-I think South Africans cleaning weapons. Now this is the crunch-some of them had obviously removed their kilts and were sitting in their shirt tails-shirt tails that are at least as long as the underkilts that started this chain of mails.

The point so often missed by people when mentioning that nothing should be worn under the kilt, and citing tradition is that the long shirt tail did in fact do duty as underwear. So not so long ago any question of what might be worn under the kilt was not really pertinent, for something that did duty as both underpants/underkilt was already in place."


This is something that Ranald and I were discussing a few days ago on the phone. The shirt tails - or the below-the-waist-bit - of modern shirts are too short to function as the( léine) should. Older shirts (like I remember my grandfather wearing) were long in the skirts - just as James writes above.


John Buchan, in his biography of Montrose, describes how (in the Bishops' War) in one battle against Leslie (was it Auldearn?) the highlanders discarded their breacanan an fhéilidh and fought in their léintean which they tied front to back under the crotch. The léine, of course, was linen - the Saxon word comes from the Gaelic.


It seems to me that the "underkilt" may well be a modern substitute for the longer shirts - let's wait for the end-user reports from our daring two guinea pigs.


I've not found an etymology for féileadh. I suspect it comes from the Saxon, derived from some old form of "to fold".


Anyway, where would one get longer shirts from these days, other than having them made by New and Lingwood?


jkdesq:

"Scott makes a big deal about explaining that it is very unusual, when Helen McGregor appears dressed the same as the men. He explains that although the women made use of plaids (ie. large pieces of fabric) similar to the men, the used them more like shawls and did not gird them about their waists like the men. Its my understanding that highland woman had dress like garments over which they threw their plaids when outside (but I don't recall exactly how Scott described this). These female garments were in no way similar to the "kilts" worn by the men. There must have been different names for them."


The plaid as worn by the women was normally done differently from the féileadh mór, and was called an aireasaid (I'm not sure of the spelling, that's phonetic), or in English "arisaid".


highlander_Daz:

"Kilt is a Norse word (Kjilt) means pleats or folds, many vinking settlers wore a garment similar to the kilt, By the 1700s most lowland Scots would be speaking English, Only the Highlanders would have used Gaelig, feilidh-beag (Phillibeg) is the Gaelig word for the modern Kilt it roughly transletes into a "small wrap" rather than skirt."


As above, I suspect that féileadh is just a verbal noun loan word from some form of "folding", which would equate (almost) to "kilting".

[An t-Ileach]

Sorry about the weird mixture of font sizes - dunno how to get round that.

[James]

Here I might be guilty of some repetition-who me!

I think there is a danger of missing the point, which really has little to do with underkilts: rather a major principle regarding the kilt in it's entirety.

Here I will admit that this subject gave me some problems, that I'm only now getting to grips with.

In essence, we now accept all sorts of variant garments as being worn under the kilt banner-a simple example would be the Utilikilt-very different in almost all ways to the traditional kilt with which I was brought up.

Too we accept all sorts of materials, from the traditional weave to the cotton: and of course deviate from tartan to say camouflage.

In all a tremendous range of options-all of which have their advocates, and valid reasoning behind them. So we are all at various points within a massive kilt soup.

Now we accept all these variations for reason: we might have different personal views, but as contributors to this board we accept the variations.

Having got that far, and accepted the principle of variations, I think we must also accept that there might be other variations of which the underkilt could be one-and who knows what else might appear over the years to come.

This leads me to think we must have an open mind about such things-it might not - or might be for some of us: but we have to accept that some might find a particular variation as being an enhancement to their kilt wearing.

Now to go full circle-I'm one of the brave souls-or maybe idiots who have ordered one-make your own mind up. For my initial reaction was to froth at the mouth and curse such a garment as being untrue to the spirit of the kilt.

However, once I started thinking about the entire subject, I realised that without experience it would be really idiotic to take a stance, bearing in mind all the other variations that have been accepted.

To put it another way, we are looking today at a process that started when the belted plaid was separated into plaid and kilt-comfort and convenience!

James

[jkdesq]

James,

Yes, people are free to wear whatever clothing they want. However, different choices will receive a different level of encouragement from members of this forum. To use the extreme examples: I think generally, people would be very enthusiastic to see other members were a sporran with their kilt; However, I would hope that enthusiasm drops off when someone proposes to wear a feather boa. In between the extremes there is going to be a lot of differing opinions.

I think something that we all take from this site is added self confidence when wearing a kilt. I don't think we would get this self confidence if forum posters were encouraging of every single idea. There is a tension. On the one hand, we are all, presumably, open minded people. On the other hand, we want some frank feed back from like minded people that what we are wearing complies (at least somewhat) to societal expectations.

My submission is that the open mindedness needs to stay within certain limits, ambiguous perhaps, but not endless. In order to deal with the tension, I think contrary opinions need to be respectfully given.

[An t-Ileach]

I must say that, like James, I feel that there is a lot of evolution of the kilt and accessories going on and, as far as I'm concerned, it's mostly good.

Whatever gets people wearing the kilt is largely fine by me. Personally, I have difficulties with the various American variants, and I'm not sure that I'd wear one myself; but if they get people into the mentality that the kilt is a dynamic and evolving garment for men then I'm happy.

I look upon the Underkilt as a contribution to this process, as I would the Utilitikilt and the others.

For myself I wear the kilt and hose according to what I'm entitled to, with or without a sporran as the occasion demands. I also wear trousers when I need to (such as cleaning out the loft, or getting really dirty in the workshop), and a lot of the time I wear a sarong around the house (a habit I picked up when I was first posted to Far East Land Forces in South East Asia). I have no particular hang-ups or campaigns about these items, other than I want wider acceptance for wearing the kilt as an everyday garment.

Initially, some years ago, I saw this solely as a "Highlands and Islands" issue. Since then, the kilt has become the National Dress of all Scots - even the Lowlanders. And simultaneously has developed into the identifying garment of all Western Celts, from Scotland, through Ireland and the Isle of Man, to Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. For all I know, the Galicians may soon adopt it. Good. And whatever advances this agenda is good with me.

But we need to keep a connection with where it all came from. It is to me the traditional kilt of the Scot that is the norm, and the way it was traditionally worn molds the form and style of the derivatives. I agree about the 'feather boa' remark, and it's a salutary caution we should keep in mind.

However, if the Underkilt successfully meets the sartorial gap left by the shortening of the tails of the typical shirt we wear nowadays, then I don't see this as a bad thing at all, whatever other items of clothing its manufacturer makes.

[dano9672]

In the 1500's, What did the Scots call a woman's skirt? I bet that since the women of that time period probably wore dresses, there was no name for such a garment other than "kilt".
-- Dave

Wow, a lot of reading to get to this point ~whew~. Here's where my own research pays off. In the 1500's (up until around 1590) our beloved kilt did not exist. The highland Scots of the time dressed much as their Irish bretheren- in the leine (a long shirt or tunic with flowing sleeves that came about to, or past, the knee) and brat (a 'five folded' woolen cloak- nobody is real sure if 'five folded' meant pleated). It wasn't until the 1590's that Scottish soldiers were noted as being different than the Irish because their brat were being tucked into their belts. Perhaps this was to keep their cloaks out of the mud of from snagging on underbrush? Nobody knows, but the breachan feile (i.e.-'Great Kilt') was born. Much later, in the mid 18th century, the top of the great kilt was removed by Scottish workmen, perhaps at the behest of their English employers, for safety reasons. We're not too sure if this was done earlier, but this is one of the earliest records of the modern kilt.

I guess the point is that fashions change. Were the soldiers who belted their plaiddies seen as 'Nancy boys' because they didn't want their brats mussed? Were the millworkers seen as effeminant because their breachan feile were half gone? Who knows. My view is 'to each his own'. I find a very loose pair of boxers quite comfy myself.