Wrapping the Braveheart kilt

[OC Richard]

It seems to me that the costume designer for Braveheart saw various images of Highland dress showing

-the 'great kilt'/'belted plaid'/'philamore'

-the modern kilt/small kilt/ 'philabeg' worn with a separate 'long plaid' wrapped around the body

and, not understanding that he/she was looking at two quite different forms of dress, and assuming that all the images were showing the same thing, tried to make sense of it all and created a hybrid thing which, in fact, doesn't make any structural sense.

Too bad that now people are looking at the costumes in that movie as a guide to doing early Highland Dress.

At an early period there would be two forms of Highland Dress worn by people with the money to afford nice clothing

1) tartan jacket and trews, with a long plaid (simple rectangle of tartan) loosely draped around the body. These four items were often in different tartans.

2) tartan jacket and great kilt/belted plaid/philamore and patterned hose. These four items were often in different tartans, the hose usually being red & white.

The jackets could also be plain. Waistcoats were sometimes worn.

The great kilt/belted plaid costume in 1710. The slashed doublet would have been quite old-fashioned at that time.

We don't have good portraits of periods much earlier than this, so these early 18th century portraits will have to serve.



The trews & long plaid costume





One can see that the plaid wrapped around the body isn't worn with the kilt in the early period, the great kilt/belted plaid/philamore being quite sufficient on its own.

Now here we are a century later, in the early 19th century, with the small kilt worn with long plaid wrapped around the body. This costume is obviously anachronistic to MacBeth, Braveheart, Brigadoon, etc but nevertheless it's this sort of 19th century costume that Hollywood costumers seem to always have in mind