First Kilt is coming together. Advice on accessory colors.

[Paco500]

1. McMurdo, you leave me with a sense of wonder. You own your style and (seemingly) always look fantastic. Kilted or not, I really admire your dedication to turning yourself out so thoughtfully.

2. Wignut, I think your outfit is great as is, but if I could make one suggestion, find a tie that pops a bit more- at least in the lighting of the photo, it gets a bit lost.

[McMurdo]

1. McMurdo, you leave me with a sense of wonder. You own your style and (seemingly) always look fantastic. Kilted or not, I really admire your dedication to turning yourself out so thoughtfully.

Thank you that means a great deal. I've always tried, especially when wearing the kilt to be put together properly.

[Wingnut037]

Hose must be on the slow boat from Scotland, so for now swapped in a green shirt and a new purple tie. Worked well to even out some tones even with the beard covering much of it up. Will need to get a pocket square soon to complete it a bit more.

IMG-20210715-WA0004.jpg

[OC Richard]

McMurdo's photos provide an excellent visual to the effects upon the perception of the colours of the tartan the colour of the accessories has.

You might note that the tartan's colours look less vibrant with grey. This effect decreases the darker the grey gets, and practically disappears with extremely dark charcoal.

As the grey lightens, approaching the mid-point between black and white, the muting effect increases. This effect doesn't show in photos nearly as well as it does in person, where it can be striking. A local Pipe Band switched from white hose to mid-grey hose and you would think their kilts a different tartan! Gone was the lovely interplay between subtle colours, and the kilts more or less looked grey. (White and black don't impact the colour-harmony of tartan.)

The other thing that drains colour from the tartan is accessories which are the same colour as one of the kilt's major background colours. This can be seen with the hose which match the main green in IoS, where the green bands in the tartan are sucked away. Once again this effect is far less striking in photographs. The effect is avoided with greens that shy away from the kilt's major green, like the softer, lighter moss green and Lovat green.

I like the Lomond Blue jacket with Isle of Skye!

I've found with my own IoS kilt that accessories in certain colours which don't appear in the tartan, especially royal blue and claret, make certain of the kilt's colours more vibrant.

Why is this? I think it's the shift the eye is forced to make between analogous colours, which sit side-by-side on the colour-wheel.

So, blue and purple are analogous, and the more vibrant the blue the more the kilt's purple zings.

Claret hose make the kilt's brown stripes more vibrant; I think the eye sees the claret as a more intense and analogous version of the brown.

Why do the tan/beige jackets look so good with Isle of Skye?

I think the two main factors are

1) there's no tan or beige in the tartan.

2) the jacket is considerably lighter, more pale, than the tartan.

Because co-ordinating isn't just about hue (a colour's position on the colour-wheel) but also about the relative lightness or darkness.

So a dark tartan isn't done any favours by a dark (or darker) jacket and hose.

I took these a few years ago in an attempt to show these effect. To my dismay the vibrant interactions one sees in person are greatly muted in the photos.

Here's claret hose making the brown stripes more vivid. Note also that the wide green band is stronger here than with the blue or grey hose, red and green being complimentary.



Royal blue hose making the purple stand out. (Purple hose have the opposite effect.)



These light grey hose washing out the wide green bands in the tartan, but not impacting the darker colours. (Grey especially impacts colours of the same value, thus a grey of the same value as the purple/brown area of the tartan would dull it.)

[Jock Scot]

OCR, talks with an obvious artistic knowledge of colours and the effects they can have with each other. I fear that is far too technical for us mere mortals who put our attire together without that knowledge. We may end up with the same result except those of us with none of OCR's technical knowledge get our results by trial and error and ultimately experience based on what we see of other people wearing. I wonder if us mere mortals unknowingly see what OCR knowingly understands the effect of mixing colours. Probably, possibly we do?

For me, after rather a long time of trial and error I think I know which colours work and ones that don't. They may not of course from a technical point of view! The thought occurs, that sticking to one tartan does make life a lot less complicated.

Having looked at OCR's examples that he posted a just while later, I can see the different hose colours used as his examples, but try as I might, I cannot see any effect of the hose colours on the tartan at all. The tartan colours look just the same in all three examples to me.

[McMurdo]

Hose must be on the slow boat from Scotland, so for now swapped in a green shirt and a new purple tie. Worked well to even out some tones even with the beard covering much of it up. Will need to get a pocket square soon to complete it a bit more.

IMG-20210715-WA0004.jpg

For me a wedding demands a white shirt. I also think it would help to showcase the tartan. With everything being the same colours, Green and Purple, you don't create interest, you create a visual mud if you will. As OCRichard noted above the secondary colours used with the tartan really do make a difference to the entire look. Of all the photos I posted my favourite is the one with the Claret hose and the Brown tweed Argyll and Waistcoat, those colours are not used in the tartan, however they influence our eye when seeing the whole outfit together.

[Father Bill]

For me a wedding demands a white shirt. *snip*

You caused a chuckle for me, Glenn, since for me it usually demands a black shirt and a white collar.

[McMurdo]

You caused a chuckle for me, Glenn, since for me it usually demands a black shirt and a white collar.

Father Bill, we would have different roles at said wedding, therefore different shirts. Someone recently asked on a style group on Facebook if he should wear a black shirt. My answer was "Are you Johnny Cash?" If the answer is no then no. I should have added or clergy.

[KennethSime]

Having looked at OCR's examples that he posted a just while later, I can see the different hose colours used as his examples, but try as I might, I cannot see any effect of the hose colours on the tartan at all. The tartan colours look just the same in all three examples to me.

Jock, I took a second look at Richard's photos after reading your comment. I think that while it's true, the tartan doesn't actually change from photo to photo, my eye tends to focus on different areas of the tartan when each pair of hose is in frame. The claret hose encourages me to focus on the red/brown background color. The royal hose encourages me to focus on the purple lines. The grey encourages a wider focus, but if I had to choose I'd say it encourages me to focus on the green.

[Jock Scot]

Jock, I took a second look at Richard's photos after reading your comment. I think that while it's true, the tartan doesn't actually change from photo to photo, my eye tends to focus on different areas of the tartan when each pair of hose is in frame. The claret hose encourages me to focus on the red/brown background color. The royal hose encourages me to focus on the purple lines. The grey encourages a wider focus, but if I had to choose I'd say it encourages me to focus on the green.

Perhaps my eyes and brain------such as it is-------are wired up differently to yours and OCR's? I suppose we all will see things slightly differently, but on another look I still dont see the effect, that you see.

I think it might be well for us all to recognise when giving perfectly sound advice to those new to kilt attire that they might not see what those giving the advice, see?