Scrunched Hose

[OC Richard]

Traditional folk / dancing shoes here in Estonia (and Latvia):




Look familiar...

I've not seen those, but I have a pair of opanke from Bulgaria. There are various regional styles in Bulgaria and other Balkan countries, here's one type.



And there's the Czech krpce, similar to what one might imagine early Highland shoes looking like, complete with the laces across the top of the foot.



Macedonian bagpiper wearing the traditional shoes

[neo71665]

LMAO, first each to their own. That said when I wear kilt hose I wear them pulled up. I didn't buy wool hose to scrunch them down at my ankles. When I wear my modern kilt I will wear wool socks and wear them low but IMHO that's a different beast. I'm not gonna thumb my nose at anybody if it makes you happy wear whatever how you like.

[Jock Scot]

neo71665.

Just to go off topic for a wee tad.

"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad."

I love it! Well done.

Now to get back to topic.

[Allan Thomson]

As Highland Logan says, the MacIan drawings need to be taken with a lick of salt. (Which is much bigger than the biggest grain of salt!)

They're fanciful Celtic Revival stuff, done long after the time-period they're supposedly depicting.

To be responsible historians we need to confine ourselves to the earliest contemporary images of Highland Dress. The fact is that our knowledge, the surviving imagery, doesn't go back all that far.

Here's our earliest clear image, our earliest full-length quality portrait, painted in 1660.



Next AFAIK is this portrait from 1700.



About Highland Dress earlier than is seen in these paintings, we can only guess.

That includes Highland footwear earlier than we see here. Yes there's a 16th century description of how the Highlanders made moccasin-like shoes, but we don't know what they looked like.

The closest surviving relatives of the ancient Highland footwear are the pamputai of the Aran islanders. It's possible that ancient Highland shoes were similar.

There's surviving examples of actual currane's in existence? Why claim that pamputai are the closest surviving examples? Curranes were around in the 19th century and people were still capable of making them in the 20th century?