So what did they call this jacket?

[MacLowlife]

SPEAKING of difficult to categorize jackets, I was lucky enough to grab this one on eBay. It is black velvet, with red ( not pink, as they may appear) details. The unlucky part is that my recent equatorial expansion makes this one a goal, rather than a daily wearer:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWNX:IT

I reckon it is a piper's doublet- the shells do not come off.

The kilt is made of wool ( with a few moth holes to prove it ) and has been altered a few times in its life. It has a costume company tag and seems to have been worn most recently right-over-left, though there is room for a generous male torso after you remove one of the take-up tucks in the waistband. It buttons with no straps and has fairly narrow aprons at both ends. And there is a plaid, too.

A deal like this appears just one day every hundred years...