Dress code: Cocktail party attire; elegant but no black tie. Kilt equivalent?

[OC Richard]

This points to a gap in the current lines of kiltwear. Sometimes the Argyll jacket is a bit much and a tweed is too daywear...need the equivalent of a Navy Blue Blazer but cut in a kilt style.

Yes this has been discussed before, the fact that the traditional Highland Dress as it became codified in the early 20th century has two modes which don't have a one-to-one matchup with the various modes of Sassenach dress.

Yet, one can easily create the equivalent of such, as "wrong" as it might be in the traditional Highland Dress world. For example an Argyll jacket made from deep blue cloth with gold buttons would be, visually, the exact equivalent to your Navy Blazer with brass buttons. Or an Archer Green Argyll with silver buttons wouldn't look all that different either. Such jackets are somewhat in a "mode gap" between a tweed Day jacket and a black Evening one.

Actually the "black is for Evening Dress" concept didn't exist in the 1920s and 1930s; this can be seen in my vintage catalogues which show Prince Charlie jackets in green and blue (and in fact one catalogue doesn't show Prince Charlies in black, only in colours).

As seen above Charcoal tweed kilt jackets somehow look a bit dressier than rough herringbone or check Outdoor jackets though technically tweed is tweed.

[Highlander31]

Yes this has been discussed before, the fact that the traditional Highland Dress as it became codified in the early 20th century has two modes which don't have a one-to-one matchup with the various modes of Sassenach dress.

Yet, one can easily create the equivalent of such, as "wrong" as it might be in the traditional Highland Dress world. For example an Argyll jacket made from deep blue cloth with gold buttons would be, visually, the exact equivalent to your Navy Blazer with brass buttons. Or an Archer Green Argyll with silver buttons wouldn't look all that different either. Such jackets are somewhat in a "mode gap" between a tweed Day jacket and a black Evening one.

Actually the "black is for Evening Dress" concept didn't exist in the 1920s and 1930s; this can be seen in my vintage catalogues which show Prince Charlie jackets in green and blue (and in fact one catalogue doesn't show Prince Charlies in black, only in colours).

As seen above Charcoal tweed kilt jackets somehow look a bit dressier than rough herringbone or check Outdoor jackets though technically tweed is tweed.

Our own Wizard of Freedom Kilts, Steve Ashton, and Matt Newsome, of New House Highland have designed jackets that would work.

[OC Richard]

Not to take anything away from Steve or Matt, but charcoal grey and dark blue kilt jackets like they're wearing appear in The Highlanders of Scotland and thus have been around for at least 150 years.

Here both of them are, in one painting no less

[creagdhubh]

Not to take anything away from Steve or Matt, but charcoal grey and dark blue kilt jackets like they're wearing appear in The Highlanders of Scotland and thus have been around for at least 150 years.

Here both of them are, in one painting no less.

Extremely versatile colours. Same goes for the jacket and waistcoat in which Sandy (JSFMACLJR) is wearing.

[OC Richard]

Seems like the traditional jacket code is

tweed (in any colour, plain or pattern) = Outdoor Dress/Day Dress

Barathea or velvet (in any colour, and including kilting tartan) = Evening Dress

But you can easily come up with things which seem to blur the line, such as fine-woven black, charcoal, or navy blue tweed, or charcoal, navy, dark blue, or dark green Barathea, when used in a Day-cut jacket (Argyll jacket).