Highlanders Discuss Highland Attire

[creagdhubh]

Well, just so those that might want to put a face to a name, here is my "old faithful" picture of "Jock" in his everyday kilt attire. It is what it is, not posed, not dressed up, just me after a bit of a stroll around the patch.OOOPS I seem to have lost the original picture in a re-organisation of my pictures, Sorry.Have another one.



Jock after a wee stroll on New Years day.

You look great Jock! I love the hose color!

[creagdhubh]

Part two is "post 14".

Thanks!

[creagdhubh]

1. Until my kilts shrank I had four kilts(one my father's, and one my Grand Father's) in my wardrobe, all of the same tartan and a dress clan tartan. I now have one and my sons have the others along with jackets, sporrans etc.. They may have three or four all of the same tartan each.I suspect that most kiltwearers up here might have two kilts, one they bought and a family one. It never occurs to us to ask. Kilt wearing is not a common thing, even here.

2. I wear one tartan for all events and in another life I had a clan dress tartan that was only worn for formal evening events. I was probably unusual in having a dress tartan.

3. I6 oz or heavier would be the norm.I doubt that many would ask the weight and would assume it was heavyweight. Modern would be the normal(common) colour, ancient would be regarded as new fangled. Don't forget many kilts are over 50 years old.

4. Yes a kilt pin is usually worn, the "blanket pin "type is the norm. Mine is my Grand father's Gordon Highlanders silver one made in, I think, in 1913 by Hamilton and Inches.

5. Normally, unless you ask, the kilt maker will make the kilt pleated to the sett. I doubt that many would even know that there was a choice.

6. Oh yes a belt is worn without a waistcoat. Brass buckled during the day, silver for some evening wear.

7. I doubt that many have ever heard of such things.

I am working on getting a kilt in the dress Macpherson tartan. For my clan, the dress Macpherson is the norm for evening dress-it is a very popular tartan amongst our clan. It is naturally recorded as "Cluny Macpherson" tartan and is one of the oldest recorded setts out of all the Clan Macpherson tartans. It looks very handsome with the black and silver of evening attire, since the prominent colors of the tartan are black and white, with thin lines of burgundy and yellow.

[creagdhubh]

Thank you gentlemen, let's keep this ball rolling- and if anyone can manage to get Jock drunk enough to put that hemp kilt on him for a picture. let's just say the rewards will be substantial - and put up in corked bottles.

HAHAHA!!! Well said!

[creagdhubh]

As I see it Kilt wearers fall into distinct categories here in Scotland

1) The Old School - staunch traditionalist, Me and Jock for example, we know how to and more to the point when to wear the kilt, to us the kilt is everything, but not everything, we wear tweed jackets, coloured hose, balmoral bonnets, shirt and tie, we are comfortable wearing it, we are not self concious, to us it's just a way of dressing, we even have hand me down ancestral kilts and accessories.

2) The New School - Traditionalist with a modern flare, Paul and Cessna fall into this category, they love to wear the kilt in a traditional manner but aren't afriad to try something different, modern multi coloured boots, contemporary kilts etc, they know how to wear the kilt, are comfortable wearing the kilt, keen to expand and improve their kilt collections and accessories.

3) The Hire School - Non kilt owning wearers, traditional in the hire shop sense of the word, white hose, ghillie brogues, ill fitting kilt, dress sporran for daywear, pc jacket, they will wear the kilt for special occassions, graduations, weddings etc, they may eventually go onto buy their own kilt and after a few years, then learn that they didn't actually know it all when their interest takes them into the real world of kilting.

4) The Desperate School - So desperate are these folk to own a kilt that they go to a food chain store and buy a complete kilt outfit for £1.99, they wear it to every possible event, the pub, the rugby, weddings, funerals, they put on weight or the kilt shrinks, they then take it to the nearest kilt makers for adjustment, are shocked to find the adjustment charge is more than they paid for the kilt, so they don't pay and just go back to the food store and buy a bigger £1.99 kilt, they think they look great, in reality they look like the sacks of potato's in the foodstore.

that's basically my take on it, you will however note the abscence of measurement, here in Scotland the 8 yard knife pleat is king, you wont find 4 and 5 yard box pleats, you wont find contemporary kilts, except in Edinburgh, and he is away on holiday most of the time or so it would appear from reports on here, but you will see far too often white hose, ghillie brogues and dress sporrans at highland games, daytime weddings ceilidh's, to re-iterate, there are those in the know, and those who haven't a clue except whatthe rental man tells them.

I am amongst your ranks for option number one! Sometimes I see where the future of Highland dress is going, and I count my blessings that I am stuck in the past, and I am only 28 years old! Where did this knowledge and appreciation for the old school, traditional ways of wearing Highland attire come from? One answer, my grandfather, Lewis H. Macpherson Sr..

[creagdhubh]

Well said Chris. Your categories are so right. I think that the hire companies are largely responsible for the eroding of highland attire dress standards. In my book' they should be offering to educate those that could welcome some guidance as part of their service.It seems they don't care and the making of money for the least effort and consideration is all they are interested in.

As for the last group, well, there is no hope for them. It makes me cringe, it used to make me angry, now I can't be bothered with them-------do I like it? No I damn well don't.

I completely agree Jock.

[creagdhubh]

Correct, that's Mr Niall Iain MacLean a very fine gentleman, an educated man, a living oracle, a good husband, proud taither, and extremely proud grandfaither, and someone I am pleased to call a friend.

I have seen him before while persuing online photos of Highland games, trying to catch glimpses of Highland dress being worn properly. I am sure that he is quite the gentlemen and I am quite suprised, in a good way, that some of you are friends with him. In the photo, is that the Duke of Argyll I spot behind Niall Iain MacLean? Looks like him-just curious! It also appears he has a red toorie on his lovat green, diced balmoral-very interesting indeed! Thanks for the interesting posts-always a pleasure to view and to partake.

[creagdhubh]

The rural tradition is still there it just in the last century machinery is now in a countryside where a century ago it was not. Whirling cogs, umpteen horse power and flapping kilts are not a good mixture. Not only that, genuinely homespun cloth no longer exists and has not done for the best part of 150 years for the majority. If a length of cloth was bought at great expense would you go and muck the cows out, or shear the sheep, or gut the fish in your expensive cloth? Would you wear the kilt to do those jobs? Not likely!If you had a choice? Perhaps 400 years ago the kilt may have been standard attire because there was nothing else, I really don't know. Whatever and however that has not been the case since, well I don't know, but how about the middle of the industrial revolution.

Sorry, its time to take off those romantic rose tinted spectacles, I am afraid.

Quite right Jock, well stated.

[creagdhubh]

I suspect that the Loch Laggan area was chosen as the subject title, I would not be at all surprised if the artist had never been there, as that was where Queen Victoria stayed on her first trip to the highlands.A good selling point, for an astute artist. She stayed at what you chaps would know as "Glen Bogle". Now any local could tell you and certainly Queen Victoria has confirmed it in her diaries that the area of Loch Laggan is the midge capital of the world.That is why she went to the East highlands the year after and bought Balmoral. Every one moved out of the area in the summer. All the sheep, cattle, dogs, even the infirm and poorest of the poor moved away and quite often stayed away. Glen Lyon, the longest glen in Scotland, is about sixty miles South of Loch Laggan.

Quite correct Jock. Loch Laggan (near the very small town of Laggan) is Macpherson territory in Badenoch. Ewen Macpherson of Cluny, the 20th hereditary clan chief at the time, welcomed Queen Victoria upon her arrival, along with many Macpherson clansmen and women. The "Glen Bogle" estate as it is coined in "The Monarch of the Glen" series from the BBC, is actually Ardverikie House, which is a private residence (probably owned by some obscure, affluent Dutchman), however the house used to be in the possession of the Macphersons, yet that is another long, drawn out story, full of deceit, treachery, and skull duggery of the lowest order! Ha...the clan feud days...lol!

[CMcG]

As I see it Kilt wearers fall into distinct categories here in Scotland

1) The Old School - staunch traditionalist, Me and Jock for example, we know how to and more to the point when to wear the kilt, to us the kilt is everything, but not everything, we wear tweed jackets, coloured hose, balmoral bonnets, shirt and tie, we are comfortable wearing it, we are not self concious, to us it's just a way of dressing, we even have hand me down ancestral kilts and accessories.

<snip>

I am amongst your ranks for option number one! Sometimes I see where the future of Highland dress is going, and I count my blessings that I am stuck in the past, and I am only 28 years old! Where did this knowledge and appreciation for the old school, traditional ways of wearing Highland attire come from? One answer, my grandfather, Lewis H. Macpherson Sr..

creagdhubh, you obviously have strong Highland connections but I'm a little confused by your claim to be amongst the ranks of Redshanks' category #1. Are you born and raised in the Highlands and only recently moved to Missouri? Or are you an American with a Highlander grandfather? Just to clarify and with no disrespect intended...