What is Traditional Highland Dress?

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Except, hasn't it been mentioned in several discussions on this forum that the "ordinary highland scot" rarely wears a kilt?

That's absolutely true-- but when they do wear the kilt they are appropriately dressed for the occasion, be it a night at the pub, a friends wedding, or the Aboyne Games. In Scotland the kilt is worn without parody.

I think that you are coming very close to taking traditional highland dress into the realm of historical reenactment...

Hardly.

which is fine for those who want to do that. The thing is, though, that you need to recognize that the rules only apply to those who want to assume the highland dress role.

Excuse me, but I'm going to stop you right here to point out that this thread is about traditional Highland attire. If you want to take this into some other realm-- the realm of justifying dressing in a manner largely, if not wholly, unknown in the Highlands of Scotland-- you will probably find more people willing to give your views a sympathetic hearing in another forum.

The rest of us can wear whatever we feel is appropriate.

Absolutely. And if someone wants to advocate wearing one's Y-fronts on their head, like a hat, and cackling like a chicken as one walks down the street, I'll be the first to give their adherents all the space they require on the public foot path. But I won't give one inch to any outlandish suggestions about wearing the kilt on this forum.

I am not saying that wearing what you feel is "correct" traditional attire is wrong, but it is wrong to criticize and/or ridicule kilted folk who don't dress by your rules...

Two things here, where you are off base. (1) I only critique someone if asked for an opinion and then I inevitably try, to the best of my ability, to justify those opinions. (2) I have never ridiculed anyone on this forum, and it is wrong for you to suggest that I have.

...(and you do of course know that there are not really rules on how to dress).

Well, when it come to Traditional Highland attire there are "rules"; you may choose to disregard them, or flaunt them. But the "rules" do exist. I think they are better described as accepted, or expected, standards of dress, but their effect is the same.

What I fail to understand is why you think a thread about traditional Highland dress, in a forum quite clearly about traditional Highland attire, is the place to argue for wearing something other than traditional Highland dress.