Ghillie brogues, yes or no?

[auld argonian]

I've voted that I don't like them. This whole costume/traditional discussion seems a bit pointless. If they were made in a traditional way they would just be a foot shaped leather bag with rawhide laces and not these evolved wingtip-brogue things with soles and heels. I guess that my personal perspective is that I prefer to look like a kilt wearing guy who's living right now and not trying to look like it's the Nineteenth Century and I'm hangin' with Queen Victoria.

Best

AA

[DWFII]

I've voted that I don't like them. This whole costume/traditional discussion seems a bit pointless. If they were made in a traditional way they would just be a foot shaped leather bag with rawhide laces and not these evolved wingtip-brogue things with soles and heels. I guess that my personal perspective is that I prefer to look like a kilt wearing guy who's living right now and not trying to look like it's the Nineteenth Century and I'm hangin' with Queen Victoria.

Best

AA

Sorry, I don't believe that's true and I don't think there's any evidence to support it. Except in isolated areas and rural settings, the kind of shoes ("foot shaped leather bags") you're talking about, pre-date kilts and would have, in all likelihood, have disappeared years before the first known kilt was worn (mid-17th century).

If you're sticking with Queen Victoria (no problem with that), the shoes in vogue might have been a plain lace up ankle boot (there are numerous Victorian photos of ankle boots worn with full length hose and kilts) or perhaps a buckle shoe of some sort. Almost all the styles we have become accustomed to in top shelf men's footwear have their origins if not their hey-day in this era.

BTW, for those who may be interested, in modern parlance "brogue" refers to a specific type of lace-up shoe that is ornamented with gimping and "broguing." According to R.A. Salaman "Dictionary of LeatherWorking tools c.1700-1950"--considered the definitive source for the leatherworking and shoemaking lexicon...and where many old Scots shoemaking words such as "lingle," "fit-fang, "elshin," "deevil"" and "yerkin" are still referenced--"brogue" is as I have identified it. And yes, "brogue" is also recognized as an old Irish Gaelic word meaning shoe but, at least in the Trade most intimately associated with shoes, that definition has been superseded by more contemporary usage. That's the way language...and, more importantly, communication...evolves.

I don't know where the word "ghillie" comes from in this context. I may have first run across it on this forum and I have surely been careless in my usage of the term.