Footwear in Highlanders of Scotland

[OC Richard]

The 56 kilted gents portrayed by watercolour artist Kenneth MacLeay and published as The Highlanders of Scotland represent by far the largest single record of Victorian civilian Highland Dress.

A while back I posted a thread where I look at all the sporrans. A second thread compared sporran cantles pictured in MacLeay with similar surviving vintage cantles which demonstrated repeatedly MacLeay's amazing eye for detail.

Now I want to focus on the footwear. In every way the Highland Dress shown in MacLeay exhibits far more variety than exists today: more variety in bonnet styles, jacket styles, sporran styles, and shoe styles.

A numerical breakdown of the shoes:

Mary-Jane style shoes: 25 (in around seven different styles)
Ghillie Brogues 11
Ordinary Brogues 10
Buckle Loafers 5
Ankle Boots 3
Spats 1 (a military man)

A numerical breakdown of the hose:
Diced 30
Tartan 13
Selfcoloured 11 (5 taupe, 5 grey, 1 charcoal)
Over-checked 1
Stags-head motif: 1

Mary-Jane style shoes:
One may object to me using this name but since there are other, quite different, shoes with buckles the generic term "buckle brogues" is in sufficient.

They exist in a form not too unlike today's; note the toe-cap curves backward at the bottom, rather than being straight across. The buckles are plain.



This has an extra layer, almost a double cap; the buckles are engraved



More ornate buckles



Now we come to ones retaining the decorative lower buckle, but lace at the top



Others retain the buckle at the top but omit the decorative buckle below





There are a couple pair with buckles above, which oddly lace below



Including these, in brown, perhaps the nicest shoes and hose in HOS



Most curious are shoes in a middle ground between Mary Janes and Ghillie Brogues



Right about now many of you are saying things to yourself about "artistic licence" and such.

However shoes very much like the pair above appear in this catalogue from the 1920s, once again proving MacLeay's eye for detail.