Willie Duff and the Modern Kilt-Wearer: The Ramblings of a Still-Fledgeling Kiltie

[OC Richard]

Everyone else in the portraits looks like they made a real effort to press, shine, brush, and starch their clothes for the portrait... except for him.

If you compare photos of Willie Duff with the MacLeay portrait you can see the way in which MacLeay, though painting all the details of face and costume with painstaking accuracy, nevertheless spruces up his subjects. In photos Willie's clothes are in bad shape.

I'll disagree with the 'press, shine, brush, and starch' bit, because the kilts and jackets seen in The Highlanders Of Scotland look just like my kilts and jackets, which don't get any care other than hanging up after wearing. Well-made kilts and jackets, of good cloth, don't require much in the way of care and will always look smart (well, unless you wad them up in a ball for months).

He (Willie) does many things "wrong": Mixing formalities (diced hose with otherwise uber-casual attire in the same era when mere solid hose were worn with smart daywear), Jacket "too long" (I have Saxon jackets that are shorter)

In the mid-19th century Highland Dress hadn't yet sorted itself out into precise categories of "Evening Dress" and "Day Dress" each with its own dedicated footwear, sporran, and jacket... this didn't happen until after 1900. So in the 1860s various styles of hose and shoes and sporrans and jackets might be seen worn in combinations not thought proper in 1920, or today.

Long jackets are often encountered in 19th century photographs, and elsewhere in The Highlanders of Scotland. Such is not unique to Willie Duff, but fairly common.

This is one of my favourite photographs, contemporary with The Highlanders of Scotland and showing precisely the sort of dress to be seen there. This fellow seems completely at ease with this clothes, as if he wears them often



Here's Willie Duff





and the MacLeay portrait (anyone who questions MacLeay's accuracy might well study this; note that MacLeay even captures Wille's bonnet's tendency to droop on one side)