Tartan kilt questions v. modern kilt questions - X Marks the Scot

millar · #1 10-17-2005, 09:11 AM

I was wearing my putty AK on Saturday at the local park. I had the kids on the swings and we were joined by a couple of my daughters friends and their mothers. We pushed the kids for a while and no one said anything about the kilt. On sunday after kids soccer one of the mothers, a delightful woman who is sometimes quite shy comes up to me and asks, "My daughter wanted to know, you were wearing a skirt yesterday, are you a part of a group or something." I told her that no I wasn't part of a group, I was just wearing a kilt. When she heard kilt she smiled and said But it wasn't a tartan. I said that is true but it is still a kilt and left it at that.

The point of this is that I was wondering if those of you who have both modern and trad kilts do you find people more accepting of the trads?

cavscout · #2 10-17-2005, 09:20 AM

I have noticed that it is easier for people to grasp the concept of a tartan kilt. When I first wore my UK Survival to work not many people commented at all. But once I wore my Gordon Modern tartan, people where visibly relieved to know that "oooooh, it's a kilt". I've learned a lot about people around me by wearing a kilt.

Mr. Kilt · #3 10-17-2005, 03:06 PM

I don't know if my traditional-looking kilts get more acceptance or not. 99% of the time I'm out kilted I don't hear any comments at all.

Today I went over to an older couple's house to look at some coins they were thinking of selling. I was wearing my black original Utilikilt. The lady said "Very nice kilt, are you Scottish?" I've never had my UK referred to as a "skirt", except from a few close friends who were just razzing me a bit.

Hamish · #4 10-17-2005, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Al G. Sporrano

I don't know if my traditional-looking kilts get more acceptance or not. 99% of the time I'm out kilted I don't hear any comments at all.

It is very much the same for me, Al.

Quote:

Today I went over to an older couple's house to look at some coins they were thinking of selling. I was wearing my black original Utilikilt. The lady said "Very nice kilt, are you Scottish?" I've never had my UK referred to as a "skirt", except from a few close friends who were just razzing me a bit.

Again, just how it is with me. One female neighbour who is slightly older than me, if that's possible, always refers to my tartan kilts as "kilts" and my plain colour contemporary kilts (even TFCKs) as "skirts". She means no harm as that's the way she sees it, and I make no effort nowadays to correct her. I am in no way offended. My neighbour and her cronnies see nothing wrong with me wearing a "man-skirt" and have told me so!!

Also, I have noticed that when I am out in public wearing a plain kilt, with another guy in a tartan kilt, it is invariably the other guy who gets all the attention and the compliments! I have put this down to the fact, and this has been upheld by many of those paying the compliments, that the tartan is so much more eye-catching than a plain colour, no matter what the style. Often, the stranger has assumed that I was wearing shorts. On those occasions when the two of us are wearing tartan, the compliments are generally directed at both of us.

It does not appear to be a matter of "acceptance", just one of interpretation.

M. A. C. Newsome · #5 10-18-2005, 06:05 AM

It is simply a fact of life that to most people kilts = tartan and that is that. However, I don't like this juxtposition of traditional kilts vs. solid kilts. That simply is a false division. Who says traditional kilts cannot be solid? I can show you a portrait from the early seventeenth century of a man in a solid colored kilt! I think what separates a traditional kilt from a contemporary/modern kilt is construction, not color.

Aye,
Matt

davedove · #6 10-18-2005, 06:22 AM

I think a big part of it is public perception, and a bit of misinformation. When the average person thinks of a kilt, they see a picture of a Scotsman wearing his tartan. As Matt has said, traditional kilts could be solid in color. Likewise, modern kilts can be made from a tartan material. But in general, the public thinks all kilts are made from tartan material.

James · #7 10-18-2005, 07:41 AM

This is a knotty one, for it is not just the tartan v solid: it is also the cut and how it is being worn.

Possibly Hamish could comment on this?

For as stated there is a tradition of solid colours, and there are also variants on the so called traditional in recent years-and I've never had a comment about my wearing of either the hillwalker of the 'gentleman's'.

Here to be blunt I have seen chaps wearing a traditional kilt: but my eyes have told me they are wearing a skirt-a major oops that.

Too as a very young sodier I was helping collect the kits of men of an English regiment who'd been posted to a highland one-and I asked how they found the kilt-they said it was fine once they got used to it. Then I was told how when they first paraded with their new kilted unit-there were horrible screams across the parade ground to the effect of 'get those horrible skirted things off my parade': instructions being given that they had to learn to wear the kilt before appearing ever again.

James

Hamish · #8 10-18-2005, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James

This is a knotty one, for it is not just the tartan v solid: it is also the cut and how it is being worn.

Possibly Hamish could comment on this?

For as stated there is a tradition of solid colours, and there are also variants on the so called traditional in recent years-and I've never had a comment about my wearing of either the hillwalker of the 'gentleman's'.

Here to be blunt I have seen chaps wearing a traditional kilt: but my eyes have told me they are wearing a skirt-a major oops that.

Too as a very young sodier I was helping collect the kits of men of an English regiment who'd been posted to a highland one-and I asked how they found the kilt-they said it was fine once they got used to it. Then I was told how when they first paraded with their new kilted unit-there were horrible screams across the parade ground to the effect of 'get those horrible skirted things off my parade': instructions being given that they had to learn to wear the kilt before appearing ever again.

James

You are absolutely correct there, James. There is indeed a number of variants of the traditional tartan kilt as we know it. My only first hand experience of these is with my four Kinloch Anderson Breacans, my recently acquired tartan BearKilt and my even more recently acquired Welsh cilt. I know that these are not tailored in precisely the same way as our 'traditional' kilts, but I guarantee that 99% of members of the general public would neither know nor care about that. Most people refer to my other kilts (TFCKs, UnionKilts, Utilikilts, R-Kilt, Amerikilts, Albanach kilt, BearKilt, KiltStore kilts, House of Bruar kilt, Savannah Kilt and my brand, spanking new Freedom Kilt) as kilts.* Of course, the TFCKs are virtually identical to traditional kilts - really, only the wide range of fabrics used and the machine stitching are different.

I've not thought of this before, but you have probably hit the nail on the head: it is HOW they are worn that sends out the message. A properly tailored kilt, worn correctly with pride and a swagger, can never seriously be taken for a skirt, no matter whether it is in tartan or a plain fabric, leather or canvas, camouflage or bleached corduroy.*

*Except by my aforementioned neighbour, that is!

Graham · #9 10-18-2005, 06:29 PM

I've had several people comments on my plain green USAK 8 yard, all have understood it to be a kilt.

I was inspired by the Irish Pipe Band in Denver with their green kilts, nobody in their right mind would look at that band marching and say they were wearing skirts!

Ugly Bear · #10 10-19-2005, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by millar

I was wearing my putty AK on Saturday at the local park. ... I told her that no I wasn't part of a group, I was just wearing a kilt. When she heard kilt she smiled and said But it wasn't a tartan. I said that is true but it is still a kilt and left it at that.

That's the good thing about AK's, UK's and USAK's Philabeg: they all sport the company name in their logo. If someone wants to say, "That's not really a kilt," you can say, "No no, it says right here: KILT," and point to the logo.

If that doesn't shut 'em up, then they're the sort who are more interested in argument than anything else, and they deserve to be dismissed.