Quote Originally Posted by OC Richard View Post
In looking over my Victorian photos I notice that Ghillie Brogues are much in the minority.

Then, as now, they're more popular with pipers than non-pipers.

Some of my vintage Highland Dress catalogues from the 1930s don't offer them. They state that black brogues (wingtip style are shown) are "correct" for Day Dress.

I have a couple photos of Massed Bands at Highland Games in the 1960s and there are no Ghillie Brogues to be seen. All the bands are wearing military-style uniforms with spats, or civilian Evening Dress with buckled brogues.

Army pipers only wear them when wearing civilian kit for competing at civilian competitions. The army brogues are black pebble-grain wingtips.

Which is all to say that there is not now, nor has there ever been, a notion that Ghillie Brogues are a "must" for Highland Dress.

It's a bit of a mystery to me how they entered Victorian Highland Dress. I think they might have been a conscious revival of the Victorians' re-imagining of ancient Highland footwear. When they first appear they're in tan roughout, striving to appear rustic.
Revival? Carranes were still about at that point in common use amongst the rural poor, at least in the Isle of Man and it's reasonable to say most likely in Scotland and Ireland at that point. Of course they still had fur on the outside.

Maybe Gentrified is an apt term in a similar way that barbours have transitioned from the wear of farmers to the preferred dress of those who have rarepy set foot outside of a city and never gone off the beaten track, at least not involving any effort under their own steam???...