"N. Finchley clothing company to unveil first ever English kilt on St George's Day"

[Semiomniscient]

As there are already Irish kilts, Welsh cilts, etc., it was only a matter of time before the English got in on the action. And let's not forget that the English are about as mixed up, ethnically speaking, as the Scots.

As for this particular kilt, I kind of like it, but it looks like a surcoat or a tabard that's missing its top half, not so much like a kilt. In my opinion, a tartan non-kilt would be more suitable for the English than a non-tartan kilt.

Of course, there aren't a whole lot of tartans to choose from. I'm partial to mine, but it's not registered and hasn't been woven, so it wouldn't do for me to promote it. I really don't care for International Tartans' St George tartan, which doesn't seem to have gotten much traction anyway.

Without delving too far into the thorny question of what English national dress is or ought to be, I'd like to see someone (besides Anglo-Saxon reenactors) do something with diamond twill. A diamond twill waistcoat, perhaps?

I note that there are Irish and Welsh tartans, but I fail to see how those garments differ from the Scottish kilt. I would also note that the national dress of Ireland and Wales is NOT the kilt or cilt. That garment is uniquely of Scottish origin, and while it has become popular to identify it with so-called "Celtic culture"... it is adopted from the Scots and has no real historical cultural origins in Ireland or Wales or any other Celtic country. So while we may have the gut reaction that England ought not adopt a kilt--I suppose it makes sense as they are influenced by had cultural exchange Scotland perhaps more than any of those other nations (besides perhaps Ireland).

[Galician]

Gee, James, aren't you willing to share a handsome garment with your Celtic bretheren?

[Semiomniscient]

Gee, James, aren't you willing to share a handsome garment with your Celtic bretheren?

Not if they won't admit from whence it came! ;)

[Tartan Tess]

I can just picture the "Best dressed Knight" at the Pennsic War in Pennsylvania this year wearing it.

[OC Richard]

"You English dogs! Your mothers smell of elderberries, and you are always showing that flag!"







I too am not a fan of flag-based kilts, whether it's like this one where logos appear, or ordinary tartan ones where an attempt is made to create a tartan using only flag colours.

More successful for me would have been a simple white tartan with a red band, in a large enough sett so that the front of the kilt would create one large St George Cross.

The only "flag kilt" I saw that I thought was really cool was The Kilt of the Rising Sun worn by a Japanese-American guy at a local Games. A plain white kilt with a huge red circle on the front. (No sporran. It would have ended up in the middle of the sun.)

All of the tartans based on the red/white/blue of the US flag have been ugly.The only nice ones have abandoned the idea of sticking with only the flag colours and introducing other colours such as black.

Originally tartan designers simply used whichever colours they thought would make an attractive tartan, and the nicest modern tartans, the "trade" tartans or "fashion" tartans, are still designed that way.