Generation to Generation

[Father Bill]

I too have come to the kilt recently. We have no family history of kilts whatsoever, other than admiration and respect. XMarks has been beautifully formative to me, for which I am grateful. I quickly gave up cream hose in favour of solid colours and am saving for diced for more formal occasions. I picked up a tweed Crail jacket and vest to replace the occasions when I had only the choice of Argyle with silver buttons. I would no longer ever wear an "evening" sporran during the day or for an informal occasion.

But oh yes, I learned other things by "family osmosis." When to remove my hat. To always have clean, shiny shoes. To dress "well" (whatever that means) and to touch my hat when I speak to a lady.

The comment that kids have no adult role models is spot on. In the school system for 32 years, I spent a lot of time teaching the fellows how to dress a mite better. When skirts and dresses came back into style, I tossed the boys out of the room for recess and gave the girls "lady lessons" about how to sit with a skirt. They were appreciative, as were their Moms, who wore slacks and didn't realize how their daughters were sitting. I taught the kids that they looked more correct in a shirt with a collar and no writing on it, with non-denim pants, and with clean shoes... and they commented that they were treated better by everyone else when they followed those suggestions - all of which were optional for them, not requirements. They liked the respect they received and it became infections throughout the school. Oddly, disciplinary incidents decreased, and spirit increased. It didn't seem so odd to me.

Both osmosis and direct instruction work. The former is, in my experience, far more effective.

Thanks for the opportunity to rant on a wee bit.

[Mickey]

CMcG, GREAT topic! This is already reading like a good history book. I love it and am really looking forward to more responses.

I spent the better part of the last 30 minutes replying to this with a lot of care and thought, then lost my connection, and through a series of distractions, closed the window I was writing in. I'll try and recall the high points, but I'm usually only good for one moment of clarity in a day.. as well as several bonehead moves...

I've mentioned before that my family history is a bit spotty back in the day. As far back as can be traced, sometime in the early-mid 1800's, this one guy may have been Scottish, English or Irish, though he is generally accepted as being Irish I'm told. He lived for a time in Ireland under the name Baker, then when he left for America, he did so under the name of Macomascaigh (sp). He changed his name multiple times afterwards, so there's a "slight possibility" that he was a bit of a rascal.

That said, when I got into kilts fairly recently, I had no knowledge of them. My family embraced Polish, Irish and Norwegian heritages. EVERYTHING I know about kilts is through the guys and gals here at Xmarks, with some side reading of my own, due to the same. I rely on Scots, especially my self adopted relatives, the proper Scots/Highlanders here, for guidance on the hows/whens/wheres/whys on wearing the kilt. With the slight possibility that I have a bit of Scot in me, I do not want to disrespect the kilt. Knowing how to wear it, is very important to me, even though I may choose to do something a bit different a bit now and then.

So I enjoy the criticisms of details, much as a child hopes that his folks will allow him to go out in public dressed as he is. I can count on two fingers the number of older folks that I've met in town who were Scots and actually stopped me to talk to me about my dress (very happy to report that they were all very pleased).. One elderly couple was absolutely fascinating, but that's a different story.

This sort of brings me to jackets. I have no idea what I'm doing, and after much reading, I am still rather unclear on when to wear what style jacket. Seems that it is a very ingrained thing. Sort of how I would describe a suit, sportcoat or a blazer. "you just know based on your upbringing". That said, I am very uncomfortable with the idea of putting on a proper Argyle or Braemer or PC. I would rather wear/make my own "Irish" versions rather than putting on a no-crap traditional Scottish coat. I don't feel that I have the right.

I've been training my father in kilt wearing.

***. Same here, and having a lot of fun with it! Also been passing my own dress code to my son, besides what he also gleans from here.

He knows how I feel about certain things, like how I would just as soon beat someone with a tire iron than look at them for wearing their pants so I can see 12 inches of underwear. It's a pair of pants. Try close to getting them right or stay home. There is right, wrong, and a bit of in-between.

[DWFII]

This thread gives voice to one of the things that brings me back to XMTS. Namely that I do not have any direct proof of anyone in my family wearing the kilt. No one living remembers back far enough, or knows a story from someone who does, to recall anyone wearing it. Having come from Scotland I presume that one of my forebears did wear the kilt. But the memory of it has entirely disappeared in my family. In a sense I feel the need to be "adopted" as it were by men who did grow up with kilts about them. This connects to my own sense of what it means to "wear the kilt traditionally", i.e., to wear it traditionally is simply to wear it as it has been passed down to you. There will be different traditions, then, but they all come from somewhere organically and represent an actual practice of wearing the kilt that is connected to how it was worn one, two, eight, whatever, centuries ago--even if it is not identical to any of those centuries. The tradition of kilt wearing for me is somewhat artificial as I really haven't received anything handed down. This forum is probably the best surrogate available given my circumstances. I would much prefer to take up more of an organically received way of wearing the kilt than to make it up as I go, even if it is no longer through my own family. Better some one else's than none at all.

Well said!

I am in similar straits. My Scots side left for Ireland after Bannockburn. But not only were they an important clan in Argyl before that (the oldest stone castle still standing in Scotland--castle Sween on Loch Sween--was built by them) but they became an important family/clan in Ireland.

Beyond that the quandary I faced was what tartan to wear if I wanted to only wear the family tartan as Jock suggests is proper in Scotland today?

My family left before kilts evolved and certainly before tartans got assigned to clans or vice versa.

Perhaps that's why I too prefer a more Traditional approach because I have to respect the origins and spirit of the kilt...or have no reason to wear it at all.

[ThistleDown]

I was born in Canada, went to school in the Highlands, high school in British Columbia and university in Scotland and England. I have lived also in Ireland and Italy and now live in both Scotland and Canada.

My great, great grandfather is the first we have record of in Highland dress



That was his daily attire so we assume his forebears were similarly dressed.

My great uncle, grandfather and his two brothers were, I am told, often kilted but all died before I was born and so were not responsible for my Highland dress education.

My father and his brother were kilted for all special occasions, often ones that were not so special, and whenever they were just together being themselves. I have a fond memory of the two of them measuring out and cutting a piece of one-inch rope before tieing those grotty old lengths around their waists in place of belts. I've no idea why that occured in the first instance, but I also remember that it became part of their kilted attire for several years, my uncle hanging a sporran from his bit of rope and my father never with a sporran in those same times. My father had a French clasp knife he always informally wore in place of a sgian dubh and I treasure that knife still, although I don't carry it as he did.

But these two men, who looked so much alike, were more than just grand on formal occasions (they both wore Montrose jackets and jabots with lots of silver in their middle years and slipped away into more portly attire as they aged) and I've a super memory of my mother reaching up to kiss my father's cheek, wiping her lipstick from it with her dampened hankie, laughing and putting her forefinger to his chest just before they left for some gala event one evening when I was fourteen or fifteen.

My uncle had a truly awful red tweed jacket with a hole in one sleeve that he seemed always to be wearing when I was in my impressionable years.

I was at school in the Highlands and wore the kilt for tramping, for Sunday service and for Sunday afternoon visiting, although I was rarely there for that. Late Sunday morning I was collected and taken off to my cousins' for dinner and afternoons in wellies always too high for me. I still have scars across the back of both knees from wet afternoons.

I have no memories of critique and correcting as do Jock and Sandy and perhaps that was due to living in two parts of the world. Today, although my bother and I have always understood the traditions of our culture, we tend to be a tad more unconventional, depending on where we are in the world.

It is wonderful to be part of the forum and hear the tales of anxiety that some live through in their early kilted days, the enormous fog that arises from murky theories and eye-rolling myths, and the stunning wonder expressed when members realise the great comfort of wearing what is comfortable to wear.

As Sandy said of himelf, I have been kilted all my klife and there has not been any time in my memory when the wearing of Highland dress has been uncomfortable for me. These days I wear what I want to and is appropriate to the occasion. Today was Canada Day and this evenng we attended a garden party at which I wore a short-sleeved shirt, a maple leaf Tewkesbury kilt, an Artificer beaver sporran, my wife's superbly knitted hose, a pair of soft black Rockport shoes, knotted yellow garter ties and a lovely little pewter beaver kilt pin with big teeth. And a bone and old steel sgian dhubh.

Tomorrow I hope to spend a good portion of the day, weather permitting, in the garden and will probably wear my favourite Freedom kilt for that. In the evening Ruth and I will attend a formal Swiss consular dinner and for that I will be dressed in PC et al.

[Jock Scot]

That is a very interesting kilt your ancestor is wearing, Rex. Two tartans in one kilt? I wonder, with interest, what our tartan and kilt historians have to say about it?

[DWFII]

^^ Yeah, what the heck is that? It looks like some sort of watermark...

[Jock Scot]

^^ Yeah, what the heck is that? It looks like some sort of watermark...

I think you could be right there, perhaps it is a watermark.

[tripleblessed]

I think that photo definitely needs closer examination. From my house it appears unlikely to be a watermark. Our right/his left of the sporran, it looks to be a separate piece of fabric, unattached, totally different design. The light stripe by the front edge of the jacket is visible to the waist. Just above the sporran, below the wearer's left skirt of the vest, there is an apparent separation of stripes, looking like a partially down zipper, which I would find more than unlikely, but that's what it looks like, and I don't know enough about period construction to come up with anything giving that appearance.

Very curious, to say the least. Wonderful picture, though. Thanks, Rex, for a jewel of a photo.

[chrisupyonder]

^^ Yeah, what the heck is that? It looks like some sort of watermark...

Yes it is, maybe someone can decipher it.



As for myself. Other than a school pal when I was at school in Manchester in the 1950's was in our school pipe band, The Kerry Pipers and wore a kilt, I have only XMTS to thank for pointing me in the right direction.

Chris.

[ThistleDown]

^^ Yeah, what the heck is that? It looks like some sort of watermark...

That's exactly what it is. The photo is not here in Canada with me and I ripped this copy, watermark and all, from Am Baile. We don't still have that kilt, so I would be interested in knowing what tartan Duncan was wearing.