wearing other family tartan rather than your own

[Jock Scot]

Alan H.

You have got it! When you(and every one else) come to visit, just be yourselves, there is no need to make a special effort.Scotland ,like everywhere else in the world, has its mixture of good and not so good people in it, but taken as a whole you will find the Scot in general and the Highland Scot in particular, nothing but friendly and courteous. What they don't understand is the in depth conversations about the finer points of tartans, hose, kilt pins etc., that we have on this website! I can't understand, or believe it, sometimes either!!Wear your kilt and wear it well and enjoy what we have to offer and in passing we will enjoy seeing the kilt being worn too. Just don't get all wound up about it and leave the details to kilt forums!

[Jock Scot]

I have said more than enough on this thread already, but something that may be very obvious to you chaps and is most certainly not obvious to most Scots and I have to confess it has passed me by, until now, and that is that wearing the kilt in Scotland is part of the experience and an important experience to some of you visitors here. We locals really ought to be rather more understanding about that than we are. I will endeavour to try harder.

[Alan H]

Most likely very true, Jock.

However, should I have the opportunity to do some extended hiking...say three or four days with a pack and tent on my back, I'm not so into the "experience" that I will give the midges free access to my legs the entire time. There are limits to the "experience"!

[Livingston]

Thank you, Jock. That was what I thought but it is always nice to confirm.

You are a veritable font of knowledge and information to us, kind of like the young man making sure that his younger brother has the knowledge he needs to smooth his way through lifes knotholes.

[OC Richard]

Sir Sean Connery. Many of his outfits (or parts of his outfits) would probably fall into the category of "it's just not done", but he does it.

Like here, seperating the flashes.



I see this all the time at weddings, where people who dont' know about Highland Dress have rented their kilts etc.

I wish they would sew the flashes together so that the ignorant couldn't do that.

(The flashes originated from the ends of the garter, tied round the leg and tied in a bow. How on earth could two ends emanating from the same knot end up on opposite sides of the leg?)

[OC Richard]

Modern Scottish tradition says that it's bad form to wear a clan tartan other than your own. But before clan tartans existed as such (i.e. before the early 1800s), most Scots who wore tartan just wore whatever they fancied. All tartans were fashion tartans, so to speak.

Exactly. The genuine traditional way is to wear whatever tartan strikes your fancy. Giving names to tartans is a modern notion, originating in regimental tartans of the 18th century.

[Mael Coluim]

I have said more than enough on this thread already, but something that may be very obvious to you chaps and is most certainly not obvious to most Scots and I have to confess it has passed me by, until now, and that is that wearing the kilt in Scotland is part of the experience and an important experience to some of you visitors here. We locals really ought to be rather more understanding about that than we are. I will endeavour to try harder.

Jock it was certainly for me on my "Kilted fortnight holiday in Scotland & France", as I packed no p@nts! I did find myself well received by the locals. I believe they appreciated my effort.

[Irish Jack O'Brian]

Jock it was certainly for me on my "Kilted fortnight holiday in Scotland & France", as I packed no p@nts! I did find myself well received by the locals. I believe they appreciated my effort.

Sir, I just finished the 45 pages of your travelogue. Thank you for a wonderful evening.

[Pyper]

I wonder how many civilian pipe bands have asked permission of anyone to wear anything. In the military it's different of course, because permission is granted for all the different bits of kit and they keep track of it all in the regimental histories. On the civilian side, I've never seen any discussion on that topic on piping forums, and I've seen pretty much everything discussed on piping forums

Another thing one would wonder about is how a clan chief would obtain the authority to grant permission. More than a couple tartans were invented by the "Sobieski's" in the 1830's. Why would a clan chief in 1850 have the authority to allow or dis-allow wearing of a tartan that was made up from thin air not many years before by a couple of Welsh con men? If he didn't have it then, why would he have it today?

[JockInSkye]

I never wear tartan of my family name because I don't like my families Tartan. Most people in Scotland, well everyone I know picks tartan by what colour they like.