Kilt hose for Charcoal Grey jacket?

[Cavebear58]

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[HarborSpringsPiper]

Timely question, Graham, as I'm picking up my charcoal grey Wallace jacket and waistcoat from the post office tomorrow (missed the postal carrier on Friday, darn!).

I'm the last guy to comment on color but here are my thoughts. I was originally going to get some charcoal grey hose and I may still do that, however, I'm going to try it with my navy hose, coordinating with the navy in my Red MacRae (red, navy, green, white stripe) kilt. My thoughts are primarily to go with a coordinating kilt color, but I think a darker one makes most sense with the more formal, or maybe the word is dressier, look of the charcoal grey. Green is not a good part of my color spectrum, so I just don't know about that one in my particular case, so I would defer to others (like my wife) about that choice. I'm thinking the navy hose are going to work similarly with my Black Watch kilt and this jacket as well.

Personally, I'm planning on black brogues and black sprorran with this jacket. I have a navy Braemar/Argyll jacket that I occasionally wear a brown sporran with and it works fine, so the charcoal would probably work to. Dunno, I'll have to see.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

"Any colour but white", to quote the late David Lumsden or Cushnie.

[Deil the Yin]

Well, I used to wear a charcoal braemar and waistcoat, and the cream coloured hose work really well with it. They would be a neutral that will work with any tartan, too. I'm neither in the "Not white hose" clique, nor do I do a lot of matching with my hose colour and kilt colours. My favourites with the charcoal were my bottle green hose and of course cream hose, as well as my argyle hose of green, wine/maroon and white.

As a visual artist, I don't think navy and charcoal would work well at all together! Colours that I would easily palette with charcoal would include green (think a darker "bottle" but lovat tends to go with everything), red (or virtually any shade thereof including maroon etc), black (if you like black), and yellow would work, too (possibly the khaki or neutral browns also).

Hope it works out for you, and congrats on the addition to your kit!

Aye,
Wesley

[Highlander31]

I tend to agree with MoR, though I am neutral on cream or white hose. Bottle green hose with red flashes would go with the charcoal jacket, or charcoal hose with red or yellow flashes would work too. IMHO

Charcoal is not completely neutral, but it's close. Look to your kilt for your color inspiration.

[ForresterModern]

As Highlander says, key off a color in your kilt for your hose when wearing your grey jacket. I usually wear my family tartan with my grey tweed jacket and waistcoat, and being a very colorful tartan I have several choices, although I usually default to the maroon (looks great with the grey) as being the best of my options.



If I were to wear it with my Ancient Douglas I would probably use a Lovat Blue to pull that color out of the tartan. With my Black Isle I would wear black. With my Forrester Hunting its a tougher choice, but probably cream hose as the tartan is strong enough by itself.

Good luck with your choices. Pictures are a must.

[JSFMACLJR]

Pretty much any colour of hose would be acceptible, except white and cream.

[OC Richard]

I myself would either go with charcoal grey hose, or some colour that goes well with the tartan.

There's a phenomenon with colours perhaps to be aware of, and that's when you put a certain colour with a certain tartan and it negates or sucks away that colour from the tartan rather than reinforcing it.

Our pipe band has lovely Muted Drummond of Perth kilts (seen in my avatar).

For several years, throughout the 90's, it was very popular amongst pipe bands to take all colour out of the uniform save for the kilt itself: pure white hose, black flashes, white shirts, black neckties, black jackets, black Glengarries. This resulted in a very crisp, clean look that made the tartan stand out and speak for itself.

Well around a year ago the band went with mid-grey hose and shirts, and the result was a dramatic muting/dulling of the tartan.

Likewise a tartan can have a lovely green that has interesting interactions with other colours in the tartan, but when paired with Lovat Green hose the green is sucked out of the tartan and the kilt becomes dull.

So many pipe bands, tired of the pure white hose look but aware of the dangers of coloured hose, are going to black hose. (I appreciate the motives but I personally don't care for black hose.)

This effect of coloured hose dulling the tartan of the kilt seems often to be avoided if the hose colour is as strong (saturated) as the colour in the kilt itself. The effect is seen to its worst if the hose colour is a duller, less saturated version of one of the colours in the kilt.

Offwhite hose should be avoided by people not wanting their Highland dress to look like it came from the 1980's: for better or worse fashion marches on. Great for 80's parties, though.

Charcoal hose are nice because they're dark enough to not interfere with the tartan, but not actually black, which interferes with the shoes.

By the way, I've never seen anyone mix charcoal grey jackets and hose with brown shoes and sporrans... I wonder if that works.

[Bill]

[QUOTE=OC

By the way, I've never seen anyone mix charcoal grey jackets and hose with brown shoes and sporrans... I wonder if that works.[/QUOTE]

They work very well together. My Day Jacket and waistcoat have brown buttons and so the brown in the sporran and shoes accessorize quite nicely.

I was taught when I was young that when wearing navy trousers and socks that one should wear brown shoes and belt. Brown I think works well with the charcoal, navy combination too.

I very much enjoyed your information contained in your post. Having once done lanscape painting I'd forgotten how some colors mute others. embarressed

Bottom line IMHO is try to pick up the colors in the kilt in your hose and you can't go wrong.

Slainte'
Bill

[Deil the Yin]

By the way, I've never seen anyone mix charcoal grey jackets and hose with brown shoes and sporrans... I wonder if that works.

I wore brown leathers and a charcoal braemar for quite a long time, mostly out of economy admittedly, but I found it quite suitable nonetheless.

The Father~Daughter Dance last year...


Drankin' at my wedding last year in a different charcoal argyle from the Tartans Museum... (sorry that piccy's kinda small)

Side Note: my mate James there is shown in his first kilt here that he bought for my wedding! Awesome!

A better shot from a few years ago but showing brown shoes...