What is Traditional Highland Dress?

[BoldHighlander]

Don't pretend that the 'cap' is a functional item of apparel for the gentleman.

I personally know plenty of gentlemen in law enforcement who wear the 'cap' as part of their duty uniform who would take exception to your statement.

[Jock Scot]

Fair enough, David. I've never been to an American "Highland Game", don't own a PC or a Jacobite shirt; and have little experience with kilts. I can certainly understand how micturating on someone else's tradition in the way you describe offends. However, "hollow arrogance ... largely based on insecurity as much as it is a lack of social understanding." ... that's a bit elitist, no?

With the greatest of respect, no it is not elitist. It most certainly is to do with pride, national pride though. Now as a Scot I have learned about the kilt being worn in many, to my Highland Scots eyes, obscure ways and we only need to see what the "Tartan army" get up to to know that. So it is no big deal if others from other nations want to do the same. Now many(most?) of the "Tartan Army" know full well that they are not wearing the kilt traditionally, which to us Scots and Highland Scots in particular, is entirely another matter altogether. I am not convinced that the majority of the rest of the world do understand.

That is fine by me as most of the world see kilts come and kilts go and that is that. Where I have trouble is the people from abroad that are interested enough in the kilt to buy one, wear the kilt perhaps and join a kilt website like this and read, contribute, and hopefully learn something about the deeper meaning of the kilt to the Scots. Now, none of us Scots expect that the kilt should be worn exactly as we do, whether that is in a "Tartan Army" way, or any other way. Apart from, I repeat, apart from the traditional way where we are dealing with a completely different beast with a far deeper historical and cultural mindset. However it really does rankle when others do tell us Scots that "to hell with what you say about your national dress we are going to do what we like". Frankly that is insulting and demonstrates an intentional slight of the deep pride of our national attire that many non Scots so utterly misunderstand.

Genuine ignorance I understand and readily accept. Information and advice that has been asked for and that is willingly and genuinely given and is absorbed, thought about, adapted and even quietly rejected is fine by me. What is not fine, is information asked for and then loudly ridiculed, demonstrably ignored, or worse still, when a non Scot tells a Scot how to wear his National Dress in a traditional manner.That is absolutely nothing to do with elitism and everything to do with out and out arrogance of some non Scots.

[MacBean]

With the greatest of respect, no it is not elitist ... when a non Scot tells a Scot how to wear his National Dress in a traditional manner.That is absolutely nothing to do with elitism and everything to do with out and out arrogance of some non Scots.

I probably shouldn't chase this one. I guess I missed the post where a non-Scot told a Scot how to wear his National Dress or reported someone else actually having done this. Perhaps someone can make me wiser.

[OC Richard]

Some random thoughts...

About caps: It's interesting that the founder of The Scottish Fiddlers Of Los Angeles, Colin Gordon, the only actual Scot in the group, invariably wore a deerstalker with kilts. Makes sense: we have a lot of sun, and the deerstalker keeps the sun both off the face and off the back of the neck, the places you really can get sunburned here. (By the way, it's strange perhaps that Los Angeles was home both to the first Strathspey & Reel Society outside of Scotland itself, and also home to the largest branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society on earth. The huge LA branch has since split up into two or three smaller branches.)

About baseball caps: Back in the 70's it always struck me, on visits back to the South, how all men and boys seemed to wear them. Almost nobody wore them in California at that time. Now they're very common here.
What's more, baseball caps have become standard Pipe Band dress. Not only American pipe bands, but pipe bands in Scotland and everywhere else have baseball caps made up with the band's name and/or logo on them, which band members wear whenever they're not actually performing.

About Highland Dress in the USA: Indeed here can be seen, at any US Highland Games, the wackiest possible mixing of various time periods and modes of Highland Dress on a single person. It can involve such things as 18th century shirts and great kilts worn with Prince Charlies and modern bonnets and any other anachronisms you can imagine. Add some Native American moccassins, modern sunglasses and mobile phones, and you've got the picture.
One guy had ghillies with no socks, a bit of bare leg, and then some military diced hosetops, a great kilt, antique long horsehair military sporran, Victorian dirk, Jacobite shirt, targe and claymore, topped off with a crudely knit bonnet with long feather. One sees this sort of thing at every Games.

[artificer]

Plenty of gentleman, my grandfather included, wore baseball caps during WWII. I suppose the Japanese thought the P-61 Black Widow he worked on was far more gastly than his headgear.
T.

I personally know plenty of gentlemen in law enforcement who wear the 'cap' as part of their duty uniform who would take exception to your statement.

Gentlemen, apologies if I have offended. However, I do believe you've mis-interpreted the general tack here. Both of these are examples showing the baseball style cap as part of a uniform. I'd wager that neither of the gentlemen in question wore/wear it where inappropriate.
a)It would be against regulations to wear a casual cap to a 'Class A' function.
b)I doubt the gentleman in law enforcement would wear his duty cap to a 'Policemen's Ball'.

My grandfather worked the railroads for 40+ years (after returning from the war) and frequently wore a baseball style cap in the summers, and wore whatever he could to keep himself warm in winter, HOWEVER, apart from fishing, you'd never see him in that style of cap.

A Gentleman is aware of his situation and surroundings, and dresses to best meet them. Wearing a baseball cap (which isn't part of a uniform or workwear ) indoors, at meals, etc, etc, IS inappropriate.

(Edit: what, the "baseball cap" has evoved even further? Moving onward from the "ball" cap, it is now simply called "the cap"? Just anothwer step towards acceptance as tradition, I say. But, in my ignorance and with much shuddering, I must ask: what is a Chav?)

Unfortunately, the baseball cap is quite nearly the only style of cap to be found these days. Everything else, presumably, is a hat. It may be a tradition, but only in it's proper place. Everywhere else it's a fashion no-no.

A brief summary of the term 'Chav' can be found HERE.

[macwilkin]

Gentlemen, apologies if I have offended. However, I do believe you've mis-interpreted the general tack here. Both of these are examples showing the baseball style cap as part of a uniform. I'd wager that neither of the gentlemen in question wore/wear it where inappropriate.
a)It would be against regulations to wear a casual cap to a 'Class A' function.
b)I doubt the gentleman in law enforcement would wear his duty cap to a 'Policemen's Ball'.

My grandfather worked the railroads for 40+ years (after returning from the war) and frequently wore a baseball style cap in the summers, and wore whatever he could to keep himself warm in winter, HOWEVER, apart from fishing, you'd never see him in that style of cap.

A Gentleman is aware of his situation and surroundings, and dresses to best meet them. Wearing a baseball cap (which isn't part of a uniform or workwear ) indoors, at meals, etc, etc, IS inappropriate.



Unfortunately, the baseball cap is quite nearly the only style of cap to be found these days. Everything else, presumably, is a hat. It may be a tradition, but only in it's proper place. Everywhere else it's a fashion no-no.

A brief summary of the term 'Chav' can be found HERE.

Perhaps then you should tone down your generalizations about everyone who wears a ball cap. As you state above, my grandfather knew the time and place to wear casual headgear, as do I. I wore one with an NPS arrowhead emblem with our Class B uniforms when working in the field, but I wouldn't dare wear one with the Class A's at an official ceremony or when presenting a campfire program to tourists.

As OC Richard mentioned, many pipe bands now wear ball caps with their logo when they are not performing or competing. I have an Iowa Scottish Pipes & Drums ball cap, for example.

If you're not a big fan of them, then fine. I'm really not a big devotee of them myself, although I do own several caps that I do wear in very casual circumstances. But that hardly makes me less than a gentleman.

Apologies for misunderstanding your words.

T.

[artificer]

...As you state above, my grandfather knew the time and place to wear casual headgear, as do I. ...

If you're not a big fan of them, then fine. I'm really not a big devotee of them myself, although I do own several caps that I do wear in very casual circumstances. But that hardly makes me less than a gentleman.

T.

I would argue that, because you DO know the time and place to wear one, it makes you MORE of a gentleman.

I am not personally a fan of the baseball cap, nor any other head-wear. I just don't have a 'hat head'. I'll start wearing hats when I go bald

(Finally!) Back to the topic. Nobody in their right mind can say that a baseball cap is Traditional Highland wear, and apart from a brief fad early in the last century, the flat cap falls into the same category.

I cannot imagine having the brass ones to tell a forum of actual Highlanders who have worn the kilt all their lives what is, or isn't Traditional Highland wear.

And cajunscot, you are correct. I was too sweeping in my generalization (or perhaps, not specific enough in my criticism). My apologies once more.

[Lyle1]

That's absolutely true -- but when In Scotland the kilt is worn without parody.

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. 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.

If, in Scotland, the kilt is worn without parody, please explain the very negative, earlier comments in this discussion in response to pictures of young Scottish men wearing kilts in a very casual manner. Those comments suggested that the young men were guilty of great offenses to the kilt.

I did not say that you directly ridiculed specific person. You do seem to know a lot about clothing, and manners. However, you are often very dismissive of and affect a condescending air towards anyone who does not share your view of how a gentlemen, or at least what you perceive a gentlemen to be, and how he dresses and acts.

What I do not understand is many posters think that a thread about Traditional Highland dress is the place to criticize anyone who chooses to forgo the trappings that constitute Traditional Highland dress when they wear a kilt, as in the manner of the Scottish youth pictured and ridiculed earlier in this thread.

I do not often read The Historical Highland Attire thread, but I do not recall that the posters to that thread criticize or ridicule wearers of the kilt who do not aspire to historical accuracy when wearing the kilt in a non-reenactment venue. There have been times in that forum when remarks were made about some item of apparel that was not historically accurate for the period that the wearer was attempting to portray, but that criticism would seem to be justified, in the context in which the item was worn and the wearer's intent to be historically accurate. However, the critical remarks were offered politely and did not contain references to any person's character.

I would suggest that perhaps this forum could confine its sartorial criticism of kilted men to those men who are aspiring to the Highland Dress esthetic. There is no need, and indeed, a true gentleman would find it unseemly, to say that someone looks "stupid" (a quote about a kilted Scottish youth from this thread) because they are not dress to what ever standards this forum finds appropriate.

In plainer lanugage, dress the way you want, and talk as much as you want about what is really appropriate Highland Dress, but stop making demeaning remarks about people who do not even pretend to wear the kilt in the Highland manner. Insulting remarks do not add to the discussion of Highland dress in a positive manner. Extend the same level of politeness and common courtesy to others as you would expect to be extended to those who seek some level of "accuracy" of Highland dress.

Remember, your opinion about the proper way to wear a kilt is only binding on the way the YOU wear a kilt. If you don't like the way another person wears or accessorizes a kilt, don't copy the example, and suffer in silence.

[Lyle1]

I would argue that, because you DO know the time and place to wear one, it makes you MORE of a gentleman.

I personally feel that knowledge of social customs is less an indicator of a person's status as a gentleman than the way he acts!

[macwilkin]

In plainer lanugage, dress the way you want, and talk as much as you want about what is really appropriate Highland Dress, but stop making demeaning remarks about people who do not even pretend to wear the kilt in the Highland manner. Insulting remarks do not add to the discussion of Highland dress in a positive manner. Extend the same level of politeness and common courtesy to others as you would expect to be extended to those who seek some level of "accuracy" of Highland dress.

Remember, your opinion about the proper way to wear a kilt is only binding on the way the YOU wear a kilt. If you don't like the way another person wears or accessorizes a kilt, don't copy the example, and suffer in silence.

Of course, the very same statement could also be applied to those who frequently brand all traditionalist kilt-wearers as "kilt police", "kilt nazis", and so forth. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

T.