footwear for a ghillie/ jacobean shirt

[Tobus]

As you said the "ghillie shirt" screams "hire shop newbie" In your opinion because there are some people (myself included) that like them. In my not so humble opinion they look better than T Shirts when wearing the kilt casually and do not scream hire shop newbie at all.

Polarised subject indeed.

They may not scream hire shop newbie, but they do scream costumey, ala Brigadoon. That's what the so-called ghillie shirts were invented for: costume. Sorry. I do realise that many people like the look, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But the reason folks like TheOfficialBren think of ghillie shirts as hire shop newbie items is because the biggest market seems to be people who buy them thinking they're authentic/historic style shirts, when they are not. They almost come across as a lampoon of Highland attire, especially when worn at authentic Highland events as if they are traditional. Nine times out of ten (in my experience, anyway) these ghillie shirts are accompanied by plastic swords and floppy tartan hats.

So with that in mind, back to the original question from the OP:

Now I know that opinions about ghillie shirts can be quite polarised here but setting that aside, I have natural, bottle, navy, slate blue and black examples should I wish to wear it more casually.

I am interested to hear what people have to offer about footwear. I do have standard type brogues in black and a nice contemporary chisel toe brown. What other options are there?

Since ghillie shirts are not in any way considered authentic or traditional Highland style shirts, there's no reason to worry about footwear meeting that category either. Wear what's comfortable and what looks good to you. I would agree that a comfortable pair of boots are great for casual kilted wear. Although, if wearing kilt hose with it, the aesthetic seems to work better with ankle boots rather than taller ones.