Traditional Highland Civilian Dress: A Definition and Guide with Visual Examples

[CMcG]

By Colin P. McGuire and Nathan B. MacDonald

THCD is an acronym that is short for Traditional Highland Civilian Dress. It is used on xmarksthescot.com to refer to the iconic style of kilt attire that has been passed down through the generations by Scottish Highlanders and continues to be worn as contemporary apparel with distinctive national, cultural, ethnic, and/or familial significance, but which is neither subject to the clothing regulations of uniforms worn by pipers, dancers, athletes, or the military, nor unduly influenced by the whims of fashion, retailers, or rental/hire companies.

THCD is not historical re-enactment attire or a costume. Its roots lie in the everyday clothing of the Highlanders, but after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the Highland Dress Proscription Act (1747–1782) effectively ended the kilt’s widespread daily use. When the ban was lifted in the early 1780s, there was a Highland Revival among the gentry who were involved in various Celtic Societies (e.g., the Highland Society of London) that paved the way for Sir Walter Scott to re-imagine the kilt with nation-building tartan pageantry orchestrated for King George IV’s historic visit to Scotland in 1822. This approach was further developed during the long Victorian fascination with the Scottish Highlands. Contemporary THCD settled into its current form in the early 20th century and was largely codified by the 1950s. Nonetheless, it has continued to evolve—albeit slowly—and some things that were common fifty years ago are now rarely seen in the early 21st century.

THCD is a way of wearing the kilt that manifests a connection to the Highlands and thus values the customs transmitted generationally there above the de-centering effects of globalization and commercialization. The kilt is no longer worn only by Highlanders in the Highlands; it is also worn as Scottish national dress, heritage attire for the Scottish diaspora, and even as a fashion choice. In a modern transnational world, engaging with the discourses of THCD provides both an unbroken link to previous generations and also provides kilt wearers the world over with a method of wearing the kilt that embodies respectful deference to the way it is worn in its land of origin. It is thus a method of keeping the local roots of the kilt strong. This ethos of resistance to rapid change and global assimilation is manifested in the sartorial pursuit of classic Highland Scots attire, which has stood the test of time, and thereby remains connected to its source.

THCD is not a monolithic set of rules. Instead, it is a group of conventions, mores, values, and aesthetics that structure—and are structured by—the practice of traditional kilt-wearers. These structuring elements combine to result in looks, styles, and approaches that evince the savoir-faire of a distinct Highland identity, the expression of which simultaneously manifests an idealized notion of the culture’s former glory and its present-day resilience. With a kilt as the centrepiece, there are a great many options in terms of accessories, with a fairly well established, if somewhat conservative, approach to building outfits for any given level of formality. For visual examples, see the images compiled below. The complexity of this situation can prove daunting for newbies, which seasoned Xmarkers mitigate by providing simplified guidelines that could be mistaken for regulations. Once someone is more experienced, however, they tend to realize the areas of core sartorial consensus and discover the ample room for personal flair.

The admittedly porous and often contested boundaries of THCD can be summarized with a metaphor of source and stream. Flowing water that is cut off from its source will eventually dry up, just as a stream that joins a river becomes diluted, and a river quickly loses its identity if it flows into the ocean. Kilt attire that is strongly connected to its origins remains squarely within the bounds of tradition, but the further it departs from its source, the more diluted it becomes until it is untraditional. There is a lot of room for grey area and degrees of traditionalness between the poles of tartan, tweed, and tattersall THCD and something like a utility kilt worn in extreme cyber-punk style.