Utilikilt at the Company Christmas Party

[yojackus]

Wore my Utilikilt Survival to the Christmas party tonight, with knee high textured kilt hose and a canvas Carhartt lined shirt. My co-workers were highly appreciative but SOME from other branches of the company were clearly uncomfortable. One woman in a velour (um, think '70's) dress looked at me and rolled her eyes. Too funny.

I NEVER had to ask a woman to dance, they kept dragging ME onto the dance floor...

Kilt on!

[1oldsarge]

Sometimes it's not a bad thing to shake things up a tad. If nothing else, the naysayers and gossips may now focus on one person instead of something negative about each one, so you provided a service.

[Jock Scot]

I think I am correct in thinking that the "Utilikilt" is not made of tartan. Assuming I am correct, I wonder if the negative reaction from some people at the do would have been the same if you had worn a tartan kilt?

[Legba]

Very cool!

[Frank McGrath]

I always wear my kilt to the company Christmas Party. This year I wore my Pride of Scotland Tartan. Very well received by the crowd. Especially the wives.

[KWD]

I have worn both to Company functions Utilikilts and Wool tartan, I get a much better responce when i wear a wool tartan then a utilikilt, a good friend of mine told me once "To me the utilikilt looks more like a "cargo shorts" kind of get up; so you look like you couldn't careless about the function." I guess i understand his point, and i never really looked at it that way. Ever since then, I keep my utilikilts to the fun dress down relaxing parties and the more dress up occations get the "whole 8 yards".

on a side note, how cares what people think, if you are happy and you think you look good, to hell with everyone else

[Tobus]

KWD, I think your friend is spot-on with his comments. Utilikilts, in fact, are very much the "cargo shorts" of kilts. Hence the name. They're utility kilts. Especially their models like the Survival that the OP was wearing.

Of course, they do have some models that are meant to be more dressy, like Dockers equivalent (the Mocker). They even have a tuxedo variant, which I find very odd. But I still don't think the general public will see the Utilikilt as any sort of dress-up attire. Especially when compared to a quality wool tartan kilt with all the traditional accessories.

yojackus, have you work kilts around these people before? Or was this their first hint that you wear a kilt?

[Perldog007]

i was a warehouse clerk in an environment that was, let's say, "less than ethical". The supervisors were having the techs draw extra supplies, trading them for favour, then the supervisors were doing side work for cash with company trucks and ill gotten parts.

The breaking point came when the supervisor had a talk with me about too much gear being issued. Irony is the word we are looking for here. I put my foot down and started refusing to issue extra gear and involved the district manager.

Not surprisingly, there was a movement to get rid of me. When I got written up on a pretext I started wearing my kilts to work, and let it be known that if I was fired I would cry to the ACLU that I was fired for being "a man who wears skirts, because that's who I am". Took them a year, but they finally fired me on a pretext.

They showed up at the unemployment hearing with three managers and two lawyers, got Brazilian waxed anyway. They thought I was serious about going to the ACLU. Wonder how much they spent on preparing for the storm that never came?

They probably could have had some nice kilts made for that kind of coin.

So yes, sometimes it is good to shake things up a bit. Wearing your kilt can do the trick.

[chapmanredbourn]

I get so much use out of the Utilikilts, even for more formal events. Last week, for an annual dinner, the black Survival (without the detachable pockets), with black socks, red flashes, red shirt with black tie, attracted very favourable comments. Most people there would have seen me in either tartan kilts or Utilikilts. Earlier in the year, the same kilt and socks, but with white shirt and red tie was well regarded when I sang at a church event.

People are not familiar with plain-colour kilts so may be expected to react differently when they see one, when they imagine all kilts are tartan.

As an aside, I was amused when wearing a tan Utilikilt Original to be asked by a lady "I've been admiring your skirt. Is it a military kilt?

Brian Chapman

[seanachie]

People are not familiar with plain-colour kilts so may be expected to react differently when they see one, when they imagine all kilts are tartan.
Brian Chapman

I don't know about plain colored kilts, but I own a solid green and a solid saffron wool kilt but these are traditional kilts and different from a Utilikilt or a utility style kilt.