Two Kilts, One Good pair of hose

[Cameron of Texas]

Opinions only, please!

A few weeks from now I'll take delivery of my 2nd Kilt, this time in Kennedy Modern (13 oz Strathmore). It will make a nice [Texas] cool season counterpart to my reiver weight casual in Cameron modern

I have yet to buy kilt hose and was wondering if there was one color that would work well with both?

kennedy.PNG kilt cam.PNG

[kiltedsawyer]

Lovat green. Definitely,.......... goes with everything. You could do white, but half the people on this forum would gag, and the other half would quietly say "Aye."

Cheers,

David

[Katzbalger]

I took up knitting because shipping here is insane, all the rules with AFIP are not US expat friendly.

Look, if I can knit, anyone can.

Plus alpaca wool here is dirt cheap, so all my hose are alpaca, except the ones I learned on - they are acrylic.

Just learned how to dice, so finishing the test soon

https://scontent.fcor2-2.fna.fbcdn.n...11&oe=5E305011

[Karl R]

I have yet to buy kilt hose and was wondering if there was one color that would work well with both?

Since I'm in the sweltering armpit of Texas (Houston), I typically go with cotton kilt hose ... which has the added benefit of being dirt cheap. $10 to $20 per pair. At those prices, I'll buy a pair of hose simply because it matches one of my shirts.

USA Kilts and Scottish Trading Co. both offer hunter/forest green cotton kilt hose. I think both of those would work well with your kilts. In general, however, it's easier to match to a minor color in your kilt, rather than one of the major colors. I think both tartans have a minor yellow line. So you could pick a pair of hose with a yellow hue (probably a mustard yellow) as an option. Or you could go with black kilt hose. It's neutral, so it would work with Cameron. And Kennedy has a black as a minor color.

However, I frequently choose my kilt hose based on the color of my jacket/waistcoat/shirt. What are you planning to wear on the top half?

[Katzbalger]

Since I'm in the sweltering armpit of Texas (Houston), I typically go with cotton kilt hose ... which has the added benefit of being dirt cheap.

I wore wool socks in the Army, I am from Phoenix - trust me, wool wicks the sweat away from your feet also decreases odor. I live sub tropical now - still wool.

[Karl R]

wool wicks the sweat away from your feet also decreases odor. I live sub tropical now - still wool.

I agree ... but I'm also talking about body heat, not just sweat. And I realize this is treading into economics ... but body heat is fungible.

My wife and I just got back from a two week vacation in Yellowstone (where we had a solid week of winter ... daily snow and below freezing temperatures). It took work to convince my wife that she could keep her fingers and toes warmer if she just warmed her core temperature. (She's a native Houstonian ... while I delivered newspapers for years in the Midwestern winters.)

The opposite is also true. If I can lose an extra degree or two through my calves, that's a bit less sweat through my body and head. And sometimes, every little bit counts.

[Dr Bee]

Since I don't know what you pay for good hose in the States, this might sound a bit cheeky - but it's not meant to be. Most seasoned kilt-wearers will have many pairs of hose. After stopping to count I find currently I have ten pairs of kilt hose - three lovat (green, blue and 'oatmeal'), four pairs of dark (navy, claret, green and black), two pairs of diced (dark green/black and lovat green/lovat blue) and one pair of cream or ecru.

The rules for wearing are not set in stone and can be roundly bent on a whim - but the lovats tend to be for casual kilt or for day-wear with a tweed jacket. The darks are for more formal day-wear but might be worn as evening-wear if it's what I fancy. The diced hose are for evening wear and which pair I would wear would depend on how I felt about the combination of kilt and jacket. The ecru hose are as a rule not worn and are only kept for some kind of imaginary emergency where only cream hose will do - thankfully this never happens.

For day-wear I tend to stick with ancient red flashes and for formal or evening-wear I have a selection of blues, greens, black and scarlet. New kilts come with tartan flashes these days - I never wear them as I consider them to be a fashion fad.

[revdpatience]

I would start with two pairs of hose -- a lovat green (lighter) and a bottle green (darker). A third pair would be charcoal.

The lovat green is great for daywear, especially with a tweed jacket. Don't know if the jacket in your first photo is actually yours or not, but lovat green would pair well, and it's the basic everyday color, in my opinion.

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The bottle green hose would work very nicely for either day or evening events, and personally I think they're just that touch more interesting than charcoal. Both pairs of green hose would look sharp with red flashes.

But charcoal is a good neutral color, too, as you see here. I wear charcoal hose for events that cross from afternoon into evening where I plan to change into a black Argyll coat with silver buttons for dinner.

IMG_8192.jpg

If you more rarely wear a black coat or rarely go to black tie events, I think bottle green would be a much more versatile (and colorful) alternative.

USA Kilts has excellent "piper hose" that are my hands-down favorites. I think they come in all three colors I've mentioned (my bottle green hose are from a different maker).

[jthk]

I will look forward to seeing your Kennedy modern. I'm happy with my 16 oz wool Kennedy modern in a 4-yard box pleat as well as a 13 oz Kennedy modern belted plaid (4 yards long by 58-ish inches wide). I also have a VERY well used Kennedy ancient in some lightweight wool (maybe 13 oz but could be lighter) as a 8-yard styled knife-pleat. My Kennedy box pleat is my all-time favourite kilt.

All the best,
Jonathan

[Tobus]

I wouldn't worry about trying to match a pair of hose to multiple kilts. I'd just pick a neutral colour that works with everything. I'm partial to shades of green and brown. Olive and British khaki go with everything.