Kilt hose observations

[beloitpiper]

Perhaps these?
http://www.celticempire.com/Merchant..._Code=footwear

ooooOOOOOooo
those are nice.

[Nanook]

ooooOOOOOooo
those are nice.

Those look fine--- albeit not Ghille Brogues. To my eyes they are a Derby Brogue with flap. George Cleverley once made some of the finest bespoke shoes in England and his successors continue to have a good reputation. £1200.00 is, at least, what they currently charge--- Lobb or Green as well (as an aside: my wife has a very similar shoe in suede).

The leather seems more a "gimmick" but a great story for "show and tell" . Russian reindeer is not really the finest leather for dress wear. Russian leather has a great reputation for rugged boots but its not much different , save the white stuff, from Swiss Juchtenleder or oiled roughout used in very good hiking boots. Its strong smelling stuff!

[Jack Daw]

Yeah, those are nice. Catharina had a dark tan, apparently.

[Chef]

I think that in most cases there is more than one side to the issue. Is it better to buy inexpensive accessories or to not have any at all. Many people simply don't have the extra pennies to invest in a special pair of shoes or on really nice hose.

I would rather see people buy inexpensive quality they an afford as opposed to "cheap" accessories in the hopes that it will look like more. In the long run they look better. So what do I mean?

For example:

• I'd rather see someone wear a decent pair of polished black shoes they already own than go out and buy pair of cheap ghilllies.
  
• I think it a better choice to wear a plain black leather sporran (even for formal) until you can afford a quality formal sporran than to pick up much of the cheap garbage out their.
  
• An argyle jacket, bought used, worn for black tie looks better than a than a cheap waiter's jacket trying to pass as a PC.
  
• No sgian dubh is preferable to anything made from plastic.

I realise not everyone will agree and my view will be considered those of a snob, so be it. Personally I have great respect for someone who wears what they have and saves to buy quality.

[string]

Actually that's more of a sensible explanation than I've gotten when discussing inexpensive options before (not necessarily options for kilts, or here on the boards.)
As a college student I have found that there are people out there who don't have a clue about the pressures of intermittent poverty and how that affects the value of your clothing, food, vehicles etc...

[beloitpiper]

Actually that's more of a sensible explanation than I've gotten when discussing inexpensive options before (not necessarily options for kilts, or here on the boards.)
As a college student I have found that there are people out there who don't have a clue about the pressures of intermittent poverty and how that affects the value of your clothing, food, vehicles etc...

I'm a college student too, but I still buy thrifty, not cheaply. If you don't know the difference:
thrift, n. "extreme care in spending money; reluctance to spend money unnecessarily"
cheap, adj. "1. Relatively low in cost; inexpensive or comparatively inexpensive.
2. Of poor quality; inferior"

The way I see it is that I buy a few, well made things that will last a long time. That's being thrifty. If I buy things that don't cost a lot but won't last long, that's being cheap.

[Alan H]

Actually that's more of a sensible explanation than I've gotten when discussing inexpensive options before (not necessarily options for kilts, or here on the boards.)
As a college student I have found that there are people out there who don't have a clue about the pressures of intermittent poverty and how that affects the value of your clothing, food, vehicles etc...

AMEN.

Not everybody can afford $2500 for a pair of shoes, I don't care HOW good they are.

And you know, when I consider things that REALLY matter.

Like this:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/katrina/
I could choose to give some money to Hurrican Katrina relief

or this:
http://savedarfur.org/content?splash=yes
How many millions homeless? How many hundreds of thousands dead? I could choose to give money to Aid to Darfur

Or this:
http://www.msf.org/msfinternational/...html&mode=view
Rampant violence in the Sudan, and the response of the group "Doctors without Borders"...I could give money to Doctors without Borders.

or this:
http://www.avert.org/women.htm
I could give money to help women, worldwide, who are living with the HIV

OR....I could buy myself a pair of $2500 shoes, because after all, only the finest Russian leather will do and everything else is tat.

I just picked a few things here. Maybe they're not to your taste. Perhaps you're more interested in Environmental issues (I am...) or the raging Homeless problem in the USA. Perhaps if you're from Scotland you long to see the Ancient Caledonian Forest grow again, or you could get behind Drug Rehab programs in Glasgow that celebrate Scottish Heritage (http://www.galgael.org/). There are hundreds of things to which we can give time and money that make a REAL difference.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, while I dearly love wearing my kilts, and I enjoy seeing a well-turned out man in formal attire, I simply cannot ever appreciate an outlook that says that only $2500 shoes will "do" and everything else is tat.

The mods may not like this post. So be it. But we need to remember, in this world, that not everybody even has shoes to wear, not everybody has enough to eat, and not everybody has the chance to keep what they work for. Kilts are CLOTHES. Kilt hose are CLOTHES. Shoes are CLOTHES. Kilts and their accessories are fun, handsome, practical, comfortable, and they come to us down a long line of a proud tradition. But we need to remember that they are CLOTHES, and that there are more important things in this world than clothes.

Now, go ahead and rip into me for this post. Say it's not about kilts....fine. But in fact it's completely and entirely about kilts.

[Alan H]

I'm a college student too, but I still buy thrifty, not cheaply. If you don't know the difference:
thrift, n. "extreme care in spending money; reluctance to spend money unnecessarily"
cheap, adj. "1. Relatively low in cost; inexpensive or comparatively inexpensive.
2. Of poor quality; inferior"

The way I see it is that I buy a few, well made things that will last a long time. That's being thrifty. If I buy things that don't cost a lot but won't last long, that's being cheap.

I agree. It's wise to buy good quality items that will last you a long time, and then take care of those things. You bet, I'm one hundred percent behind this idea!

I appreciate the look and feel of well-made stuff. I am seriously jonesing for Strings hand-knit kilt hose, for example. I also well understand that there's something to be said for supporting the ever-dwindling number of real artisans in the world who take the time to make the wonderful items they create. You BET.

And I also agree that we can't spent every waking minute of our lives stressing over the disasters; hurricanes and famines and epidemics and wars that will always be with us. These things are BAD...bad things, but they should not rob us of the joy in living, and the ownership of certain fine things. It's not a sin to own a nice pair of kilt hose, is it? No, it's not.

But what bothers me is that sometimes on this board it SEEMS TO ME....and I want to make it clear that this is just what SEEMS TO ME, and I could be very, very wrong, but it SEEMS TO ME that we put "proper clothes" at an unrealistically high level of importance in the world. It SEEMS TO ME, and I could be wrong, that sometimes in our enthusiasm for all things kilted and kilt-related on this forum, that SOMETIMES we lose perspective on "kilts" in relation to the rest of the world..

And so I hope that my previous post; one in many thousands on this board, interjects a little bit of perspective back into this discussion.

[Galician]

$2575 for shoes made from 200-year old leather??

Thanks for your words, Alan.

[Alan H]

I would like to make it clear that I do not think that buying a very, very expensive pair of shoes is necessarily a BAD thing. Nor is purchasing an expensive pair of kilt hose, or a wonderful hand-made kilt. I do not think that people who purchase these items are bad people! I hope to own a Tewksbury kilt someday, and I am very much looking forward to Strings hose.

It's just that FOR ME, some of the extremely expensive items that get discussed on our forum are way, way over MY PERSONAL LINE of what I could ever possibly justify in my own mind, to spend on clothes. MY PERSONAL preference would be to spend much less money on clothing related items, and then use the difference for other things, including giving money to causes that I believe in. My mind and heart would not rest easy if I spent $500 on a pair of shoes, for example, or $200 on a pair of hose. I would be thinking..."Alan, you could have bought an $80 pair of shoes, put $300 into savings and given $120 to the Hunger Project" and still looked sharp, been comfortable and had a great time at Burns Night".

that's how I think. I want to make it very, very clear that I do not judge others whose personal lines/limits/budgets are different from mine!