Is a Bowler acceptable

[Woodsheal]

I'm kind of amazed at how many people, those who desire to be accepted in a kilt, were ignorant enough to tell you not to wear a hat...

As kilt wearers, we are all free-spirited, individualistic, unconventional, even courageous. These characteristics, however, do not grant one immunity from looking goofy! The fellow asked for honest opinions. No one said he CAN'T wear a bowler with a kilt; some just feel it would look odd at best, silly at worst. Honest opinions, my friend!

Sorry to be so "ignorant"....

[macwilkin]

As kilt wearers, we are all free-spirited, individualistic, unconventional, even courageous. These characteristics, however, do not grant one immunity from looking goofy! The fellow asked for honest opinions. No one said he CAN'T wear a bowler with a kilt; some just feel it would look odd at best, silly at worst. Honest opinions, my friend!

Sorry to be so "ignorant"....

Brian's post reminded me of the old saying: "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."

Opinions were asked for & given. No ignorance here.

T.

[Panache]

I suspect that SnakeEyes was jotting his thoughts down quickly and didn't mean "ignorant". I should give him the benefit of the doubt.

I think this is all about Archetypes. The mental baggage we carry with an image in our mind and how we are seeing that as well (or instead of) just the object itself. When we view a bowler hat we start thinking of perhaps Patrick Macnee as John Steed in the Avengers, or the formal slightly stuffy attire of a British Banker, an American at the turn of the Century, maybe the comic relief in a Western, Wimpy from Popeye, Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange, Lena Olin in The Unbearable Lightness of Being …err…OK skip those last two . Anyway, the bowler hat brings with it some strong fashion archetypes. These images are so strong in our heads that we really can’t blend them with another strong archetype. Kilts bring with them equally strong images, be it Rob Roy, William Wallace, or Hamish . The two archetypes simply don’t blend in our heads regardless of the actual material before us.. The best suggestions for wearing a bowler with a kilt so far have been to come up with the kilt equivalent of the bankers suit.

Case in point, here is a picture for you to scroll down to and ponder:








Warning startling image below!















MacSimoin and I had been joking about “Kilts and Cowboy hats”. So I had the lovely F-H.C.A.G. take this picture in the spirit of good fun.

What’s your basic gut reaction?














I thought so.


The Western look is again a very strong fashion archetype and we reject it with the kilt.

It just looks wrong.

But think a moment. If you changed the boots for Ropers laced boots, lost the bullwhip and scarf would the outfit work now?











I thought so.

Yet if you stop a minute and break down the ensemble you can see that the snaps on cavalry shirt echo the snaps on the Utilikilt. The black leather band on the hat and the silver conchos work with the buckle. In a way it should work.

But it doesn’t

Colin refers to this picture as “Panache as Dale Evans”

So anyway the challenge presented here moved beyond a particular hat and a particular type of pleated skirt. It was trying to mesh all the associated images, history, culture, and mythology they brought with them.

Fun discussion though!

Cheers

Jamie

[SnakeEyes]

Indeed, ignorant wan't my best choice for word. I was just kind of dissappointed to see so many people just say "Don't!" with no reason. I could say a lot more on this, but once again I'll just give up.

[jordanjm]

I think that while I tend to associate a bowler with the men in Mary Poppins, and the wimps in Western Movies, like in McLintock the dancing scene at the party. While the kilt brings up images for me of a much more rugged outdoorsy kind of people. I think there is something to be said for different articles of clothing have different connotations to them based on our own world view. With that said I also think that there is usually a way to bridge any two fashion gaps. For example I personally think that Western wear, like western music has Celtic culture as a root. If you were to make a western outfit more Celtic, embroidered celtic knots on the shirt, and band around the cowboy hat. Ditch the cowboy boots for roping boots. Then Kilt belts and cowboy belts in terms of size very similar, or as I once heard a cowboy belt buckle described, "The size of Texas"? Some of the things I would try to bring the bowler into harmony with the kilt is to find a way to make the Kilt more English, which a pinstripe kilt suit would accomplish nicely I think. I would then find a way to make the bowler more Scottish. Perhaps a band of tartan fabric around the hat, which matches a tartan tie. This is just my quick thoughts on how to mix items from different cultures. Find something they have in common, and build on the commonality.

[Presuming Ed]

Not something I would do, myself.

The bowler hat (particularly in black) is a hat, most traditionally worn (in the UK at least) by office workers in the City of London - the financial district. They have now almost completely fallen out of favour - the only time I can think of where you find a number of people wearing bowlers is at the annual Cavalry Memorial parade.

Mixing items of traditional dress, IMHO, is not a sensible thing to do - to my eye, a bowler and a kilt would look very wrong.

I've never seen bowlers in any other colour. They would smack of costume to me - I would just think of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid.

To me, the traditional kilt epitomises the outdoors/rugged/highlands. The bowler is urban.

[Erisianmonkey]

<snip>


What’s your basic gut reaction?

Jamie, my gut reaction is that if you switched to a roper style boot and lost the bandana that it would work. The biggest problem I see in the picture is that pull-on cowboy boots just aren't meant to have the tops seen. I'm reminded of the sniggering heard out here when a tourist goes into a western wear shop and emerges with their jeans tucked into the tops of their $200+ snakeskin boots. Then again, as I have stated many times, I am constantly mixing genres. I remember wearing a white blazer, dress shirt and four in hand tie with camo BDU's bloused over combat boots to school one day. I think several of the fashionistas had to be taken to the nurses office and revived with copies of GQ and Vogue...

[davedove]

I've never seen bowlers in any other colour. They would smack of costume to me - I would just think of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid.

That's not completely off base, as the bowler was very popular among the 19th century folk of the United States. It was even popular in the west, possibly more so than the more commonly known wide brimmed cowboy hat. The cowboy hat was popular among those who rode the range out in the sun, but town folk tended to wear other types of hats, including the bowler.

I've got a bowler that I use in my western costumes when I want a different look.

[Pleater]

I wore a black bowler with a black 8 yard kilt, just slightly off white shirt and hose, black waistcoat, and it did look rather good, but it was at the Sidmouth folk festival (in England) where people can and do wear the strangest things.

There were also many other people wearing bowlers and top hats and antique costumes.

I did get a couple of compliments on the attire though, which is quite something in that company.

For the torchlit procession and fireworks I added a red hatband, red shoes and red drum - with snares - and a red - cloth - shoulder thingie - so as not to have the shoulder strap of the drum cut into my neck, and a grin which was likely to have the top of my head fall off.

So - I think it can be done, but - only where socially acceptable, which is a bit of a shame really.

I will be wearing it again this August, having made the kilt smaller. The look is good, but you need the venue to be able to get away with it.

[cavscout]

I believe this was because the bowler is what they wore back east in the urban cities they migrated from, and probably for many, from Europe. As hats were a major purchase back then, you wore what you had until you had to buy a new one. I would imagine that people who had lived in the west for a long time viewed the bowler as a sign that a person was either new to the area or a "banker" type. While it is never mentioned in the movies directly, the type cast is clear. We think nothing of it as we grew up seeing movies with characters in westerns wearing bowlers, it was probably a focal point of prejudice by those who had been in the west long enough to have moved on from the bowler they inherited from their father.

To go with JJM's concept on mixing headgear, there was a character in the movie "Quigley Down Under" who wore a balmoral instead of the expected cowboy hat. It worked for the character.