Is it OK to wear a dress tartan casually?

**sharpdressedscot** · 15th August 08, 03:11 PM

If I remember correctly, I don't even think Dress tartans are even made for dress purposes...most of the time.

**JRB** · 15th August 08, 03:19 PM

I'm very sorry to hijack this thread but I have to ask as it's driving me nuts...Ron, what the heck are you standing on???

**Carolina Kiltman** · 15th August 08, 04:37 PM

Originally Posted by JRB

I'm very sorry to hijack this thread but I have to ask as it's driving me nuts...Ron, what the heck are you standing on???

Looks to me like one of the "Zodiac' style boats.. Back to the thread in question, That is what I love about a kilt. It looks good no matter what you wear with it. Jeans and a Tux jacket would be ludicrous, or worse. A Kilt can go from white tie to casual, depending on what is, or is not, worn with it. Currently, I have only one kilt. (My earlier ones shrank in the closet), so I wear it with a "T" shirt, a "bumfreezer" a Braemar, without vest, with vest, with formal shirt,bow tie, vest, and fly plaid. Well you get the picture.

**walkerk** · 15th August 08, 05:25 PM

Originally Posted by Andrewson

I began to wonder if it ever right to wear a dress tartan with an otherwise casual outfit.

Absolutely not! Anything other than a Prince Charlie jacket with Ghillie Brogues and the Kilt Police will come down hard on you. Your kilt wearing privileges will be revoked for three months and for the remainder of the year you will be required to wear a kilt pin in the shape of a large red "L".

**Andrewson** · 16th August 08, 02:21 AM

Originally Posted by walkerk

Absolutely not! Anything other than a Prince Charlie jacket with Ghillie Brogues and the Kilt Police will come down hard on you. Your kilt wearing privileges will be revoked for three months and for the remainder of the year you will be required to wear a kilt pin in the shape of a large red "L".

OK OK OK

I KNOW there there is no such thing as fixed rules and regs about kilt wearing. I DO go with my own taste in these matters. That is just the point. The combination of black shirt, loud Macleod (which I admit I have not as yet worn in public), bare legs and sandals looked wrong to me. And I chickened out. Yes I can see that my attempts to justify this by raising this general question look just like an excuse (maybe they are

) but it really did cause me to wonder if there was a reason for designating some tartans as "dress".

I was aware that some "dress" versions are made by substituting white for one of the colours (though not, admittedly in the case of the Dress MacLeod). The question is, why does that make the tartan more dressy? Does it really? Was there ever a time when it was considered essential to change to the dress version for formal occasions?

**Jock Scot** · 16th August 08, 04:21 AM

I am not wishing to split hairs,but the MacLeod of Lewis(loud MacLeod) tartan is both the day wear tartan and dress tartan for that branch of the MacLeod clan.So you will be fine to wear it as daywear. The "Loud MacLeod" is the dress tartan for the MacLeod of Harris,the "senior",part of the clan and as you probably know, they wear MacLeod of Harris tartan for day wear. These days, though, few members of the MacLeod of Harris clan seem to bother to wear "Loud MacLeod" as dress wear.

**davedove** · 16th August 08, 04:48 AM

Actually, I believe the "dress" label did not necessarily apply to a more formal tartan. By substituting white into the tartan, it made it more feminine and thus ladies wear.

Of course, you can wear whatever tartan you want whenever you want, but it all has to fit your own individual taste. While there may not be any "right" situations for the wear of a particular tartan, there is always "right for you" and only you can decide that.

**Andrewson** · 16th August 08, 06:13 AM

I have now done what I should have done in the first place. I have consulted the oracle. James D. Scarlett, in Tartan, the Highland Textile (Shepheard-Walwyn 1991) has this to say about the growth in popularity of tartan following the 1822 visitation of George IV to Edinburgh which led to its mass production for the first time:

Page 42 Mass-production does not only make production in large quantities easy, it makes production in small quantities impossible or at least uneconomical. Manufacturers needed to sell as much tartan as possible and the best way to do this was to convince people that they needed to have several different patterns. The strident colours of the early analine dyes made 'hunting' tartans an almost natural development, ... and in an age when everybody (or everybody who could afford the finery) 'dressed' for dinner, 'dress' tartans found ready acceptance. Some clans were lucky enough to have two tartans and in such cases a dark one could be called 'hunting' and a bright one 'dress'.

So yes I am free to wear the loud MacLeod as daywear and as casually as I like. Now where did I put that red shirt ....

**Riverkilt** · 16th August 08, 08:31 AM

What a crazy crazy thread this is!! Wheeeeee!!!

Jay, I'm standing on a raft...pontoon type raft. Heavy steel body with four pontoons holding it up. Same type as in the movie Broken Arrow, though in the movie they take off the outer two pontoons. Same location, Glen Canyon of the Colorado River.

I am baffled by the term "Dress MacLeod" for the MacLeod of Lewis tartan. Yeah, yeah, that's what Robert Bain calls it, but I didn't think anyone else did. At least Bain was nice enough to point out that branch of the MacLeods were "vassals of the Macdonalds."

And I've never thought of "dress" tartans being for "dress up." Always thought they were for the ladies as mentioned, then because of their beauty were worn by the guys too. But "dress" just meant a tartan variation, not when/what to wear them for.

We're suddenly teeming with experts with different expert opinions...yeeehaaa!!

Ron

**Jock Scot** · 16th August 08, 09:30 AM

Ron,I think we have one of these trans-Atlantic mis-understandings here. In UK terms the term "dress" in male attire means formal attire. A suit(business or lounge) in UK terms is NOT dress wear.I guess, for us, dress(formal) wear would be, for daywear, the morning suit, or, in kilt terms a black barathea, silver buttoned, Argyll. I am not sure if you should wear your dress tartan with that outfit,but I never have.I don't think you should as we are talking formal day wear here. Oh, these d--n dress codes!

The formal evening(dress) wear in the UK starts with a dinner suit(tux) and black bow tie, or, again in kilt terms a Prince Charlie jacket and(in times not so long gone) a kilt made of your "dress" tartan. These "dress" tartans were often lighter in weight and made of "super standard" cloth.

Of course not all clans have a day(hunting)tartan and a "dress" tartan and certainly these days not many people have the two.

I have had more than a sneaking suspicion that you chaps over there, have regarded the term "dress" in quite another way,am I right?