Civilian Spats

[puddlemuddle]

Piobair,
Soooo....scince I have worn hose tops with spats and a button up shirt and vest..I guess that what you are saying is that Im not a very good piper then...I have worn them because I think they look sharp, AND I think they go well with what I have had on, I have also worn them with a police style dark blue shirt, and they looked sharp there too. Guess what, Im not in the miiltary, so I don't have to go by their regulations, now I actually do not wear them anymore because I feel they dont go with my new kilt (before they were worn with my BW tank), but I dont see any reason to start stating that any piper who would wear such as a thing probablly isn't a very good piper....I do take offense to that.

[Piobair]

Puddlemuddle,

I'm going to respond to your post privately, something I would have preferred you had done initially. I will say that the irony associated with highland dress, especially in the US, is that some people will go to incredible lengths to validate a point, citing all kinds of arcane and esoteric material to back their claim. Then, in almost the same breath, they'll completely contradict their initial statement. So you'll see someone trace the origins of Clan X back to some hillside in Aberdeen in order to demonstrate the correlation between the blue found in Clan X's tartan and a particular variety of sedge found in that aforementioned location, and then conveniently forget that most Aberdonians didn't wear tartan, and that the forbears of Clan X took their societal cues more from the court of France than from any imagined stronghold of a romantically imagined Gaelic aristocracy. Then they trot of to the games (or the mall or the renaissance fair) feeling completely confidant in what is essentially some pedantic BS, forgetting that there others who are also members of the community who might take offense.


Everyone has a right to accept certain ideas while rejecting others, especially when it comes to an area dominated by as much spurious and subjective scholasticism as the dubious "official" history of Highland dress. Keep in mind that there will always be people who reject what you consider truth and hold dearest the thing you find most ridiculous. That's just how the world works. Being able to express these differences is what allows for the evolution of ideas.

Except when it comes to spats.