Even if someone sees a kilt in a parade or on tv doesn't mean they know anything about the history or culture behind it. To many people it's just guys in plaid skirts marching in a parade.

And that's one of the issues I have with the "just wear it and everything will be fine" philosophy.

There's a huge amount of public education to be done and has to be done on the mass-culture level if we're ever going to get past kilt-wearing being an oddity.

Right now, we have no control over the message we're trying to put out. The best recent example I can give is the November 8th issue of People Magazine. There's a picture of an actor (I can't remember the guy's name) on page 14. He's shown with a good-looking female (they'd just gone for Chinese food).

The caption mentions that he's "making a fashion statement" wearing a kilt (it looks like a new black neo-trad Utilikilt), but asks if the bag he's holding is his purse.

We kilting folk don't have a media strategy, so we're at the mercy of the media, and they have none.