Tradition and Change

[OC Richard]

Why should you care about wearing the kilt in a traditional manner? Don't we have the freedom to dress as we like? Should we not express our individuality through our garments? Why should we let others tell us how to dress?

It's probably not your intention, but to me the grouping of those questions suggests a dichotomy between dressing traditionally and dressing as we like, a dichotomy between dressing traditionally and expressing our individuality.

I don't think that these dichotomies exist. A person choosing to dress traditionally is expressing his individuality just as much as a person choosing to dress in some other way.

Say you're at some function at which all the men are in business suits save for one guy dressed as a punker, with a fuchsia Mohawk and loads of piercings and chains etc. One might think that the punker is "expressing his individuality" but in reality he's not doing such any more so than a guy who shows up at a punk rock club dressed in a business suit. Both styles of dress are the precise opposite of expressing individuality: both are expressing, rather, membership in groups having strict dress codes.

About Utilikilts, they originated here on the West Coast of the USA (up in Washington State) but have quickly gone from being a strange novelty to becoming a standard form of dress both within and without the Scottish community here. At our local Games, amongst non-pipe band people, Utilikilts have become as common as traditional kilts. And many people with no connexion to the Scottish community wear them as merely a different fashion style. I see men walking around in Utilikilts all the time. There's a particular look one mostly sees: they're young men from the Pacific Northwest, often with long hair, often with tattoos, and the rest of the outfit usually consists of a black t-shirt and black Doc Martens or similar boots. Nearly all of these people are wearing actual Utilikilts; I rarely see other sorts of 'casual kilts' or traditional kilts. So the Utilikilt too has become its own 'fashion culture' with a fairly specific dress code.

From the photos I see of Scotland Rugby and Football supporters in kilts, Utilikilts have had zero impact in Scotland. These Scots seem invariably dressed in more or less traditional tartan kilts, with sporrans.