In The Highlanders Of Scotland 25 of the 56 kilted figures are wearing "Mary Jane" style buckled brogues. These have been standard in the military throughout the 20th century in orders of dress which call for full diced hose, and they have been the standard for civilian Evening Dress when wearing full tartan hose.
But five of the men are wearing a different sort of buckled shoe:
Which got me to wondering about them.
In the 18th century Highland soldiers wore the same shoes as English soldiers, the buckled shoes of the period:
Now here's Alasdair MacDonnell of Glengarry wearing laceup shoes that have a lower cut, like pumps or modern loafers:
Throughout the early and mid 19th century Highland soldiers wore shoes like that, but with buckles, which from their placement seem to be merely decorative, that is nonfunctional:
Spats later became universal for the rank-and-file soldiers, which were worn with ordinary military shoes and half-hose/hosetops, but pipers and officers in Levee Dress continued to wear these "buckle loafers" or "Highland pumps" (my terms) up until c1900:
These also show up in many 19th century civilian portraits. Sometimes the buckles are somewhat higher, making me wonder if they were functional or not:
By the turn of the century it seems that the Highland regiments had gone over to the Mary Jane style, at least for pipers:
In any case, I wanted to recreate the look of the 19th century Buckle Loafers, so I simply bought a pair of wingtip "tassel loafers" on Ebay for a few dollars and attached some buckles. Here's my $20 semi-authentic 19th century "buckle loafers".
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