Question about hose

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Here are half a dozen reasons why I, a dyed in the wool traditionalist, don't like white hose:

1) They rarely, if ever, look really clean.
2) If you have thick calves, they make your legs look like beer kegs.
3) The best of the expensive ones still look cheap, at a distance.
4) They are worn, almost exclusively, by bands.
5) Rented kilt outfits inevitably come with white hose.
6) White hose show not only lack of imagination, but lack of confidence in the ability of the wearer to dress well.

[dfmacliam]

and they blend in with pasty white legs...LOL

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

and they blend in with pasty white legs...LOL

Thank you. I must add that to my list.

[Pleater]

If you leave wool in chlorine based bleach, it dissolves. It is how I - and many other knitters test unknown yarns to find out if they are all wool, a blend or just a good imitation.

Historically wool could not be bleached - and wet white wool exposed to sunlight goes brown. Only the natural colour of a white sheep was available until comparatively recently.

I think that it might look rather good to have matching natural white jersey and hose in an aran or other chunky style of knitting, for fairly casual wear.

Really good quality thick pure white hose would look well with a very formal lace and doublet - I am sure the insurpassable Hamish was photographed in such a combination and looked wonderful in it.

As an incorrigible observer of men's legs I have to say that thin white hose - sorry fellows - looks very school-girly to me.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Let's face it. White knee socks and a plaid skirt are girlie. I don't care how butch a guy is, kilt and white socks... hmmm... dunno... looks like something from sixth form at St. Trinians...

[OC Richard]

I have to start with the caveat that I'm a visitor from the Pipe Band competition scene.

Pipe Band dress goes in cycles of fashion, like the width of neckties and lapel in men's suits do.

In the old days, pipe bands wore tartan or diced hosetops and spats in imitation of military bands. Or, they would wear Evening Dress complete with full tartan hose and buckled shoes, or less often Day Dress with muted solid colored/self-coloured hose in Lovat blue, Lovat green, oatmeal, etc.

Then in the late 1970's a huge fad happened for Arran knit hose in offwhite, worn with Ghillie tie brogues. Just about every band went with those for a while.

Then the next fad hit, in the 1980's: pure stark white hose with plain-knit legs but with fat bulky "bobble top" or "popcorn top" turnovers cuffs. By the 1990's if your band wasn't wearing these, you were sadly behind the times.

Now the anti-white popcorn hose fad is hitting and bands are abandoning their white hose in droves and going for anything but. Very popular are black, navy blue, and charcoal grey. But at the 2009 World Pipe Band Championships around half the Grade One Finalists were still wearing their c1990 pure white bobble top hose.

I don't know much about the non-Pipe-Band thing, but it seems to me that a lot of people began wearing offwhite/cream plain hose with Prince Charlies for Evening Dress c1980. To me it never looked right, because to my eye Evening Dress looks best with full tartan hose and buckled shoes. But, dark hose that blend with the kilt look nice too.

Here we go! First the genuine military look, with tartan or diced hose:



Here's a Highland Games in the 1970's showing the lack of ghillie-ties at that time: bands have tartan full hose and buckled shoes, or tartan hosetops and spats:



Here's a band in the glory days of the handknit offwhite Arran hose:



Here's the pure white bobbletop hose:



And finally the modern look:

[Rob Wright]

Let's face it. White knee socks and a plaid skirt are girlie. I don't care how butch a guy is, kilt and white socks... hmmm... dunno... looks like something from sixth form at St. Trinians...

Ahhhhh St. Trinians, I have a couple of the older movies laying around here somewhere, much better than that pitiful new version released a few years ago.

Rob

[Lachlan09]

In all my years performing on-stage with my father and brother in our trio in the 1960's-70's, we always wore cream-coloured kilt hose. Ours were always home-hand-knitted with decorative (Aran-like) tops and invariably sourced from the little old Highland and Orcadian ladies my dad knew. The same ladies used to make Aran jumpers in the same type of cream wool (not worn with our kilts on-stage). My Mum was a wiz at keeping them bright without going yellow. I haven’t a clue how she did it, but they were always hand-washed and never hung to dry, but instead laid on a towel.

They were made long by design, so they weren’t just pulled up and folded over the garter –flash strap - these had extra length so you folded them down, so that the top of the fold-over was just touching the base of that little protruding bone below the knee, then pulled back up so that the open end of the hose finished up facing upward and just a tiny tad below the top of the fold-over. A bit like wearing those long football and rugby socks of the 1940’s/50’s.

Of all the Highland people we knew then, from TV and radio Gaelic performers, ceilidh singers to Gaelic choirs, I cannot recall any performer or audience wearing tartan hose at “normal” ceilidhs and concerts. Many wore white hose, either factory white (which I thought too thin and too snow-blind white) or hand-knitted cream hose, some wore Lovat or other self-coloured hose on-stage. Even toshed up in evening wear, I can only remember one Gaelic TV and recording performer who wore tartan hose, in yellow MacLeod tartan. The rest chose white or cream.

I liked my cream Aran hose, they looked clean and uncluttered, the thicker knit made legs look manly if you had the legs (luckily we did) and today in Scotland at least, I believe they are still the most common form of hose for kilts, along with self-coloured wool hose. I always thought that tartan hose and especially those shiny black strappy shoes with buckles on the toes looked effeminate, like Clarks wee lassie shoes. But we all have our opinions. It would be a shame if we all dressed the same.

[Noel Christian Riddell]

Count me amongst the fans of white/off-white hose. My legs tend to look like matchsticks in dark hose.

Maybe I need to try something in green...

[Tiny]

I have a couple pairs of "cream" hose but to my eye they just look white. I wear them at times. usually if my other hose are either dirty or not going to match what I'm wearing.