With all due respect, perhaps there is another misunderstanding in this thread. The Scots present are not critiquing the wearing of the kilt by non-Scots. Neither are they in any way suggesting that the kilt should be worn in accordance with any set of written or unwritten rules – other than, perhaps, the obvious pleats-in-the-back ones, and the like.

This thread is about “kilted fashion” and what we are trying to get across is that the Scottish kilt is just a part of the Scottish National Dress; if one wants to wear Scottish National Dress (including the Scottish kilt) there are customs/conventions to be followed. It is not the kilt we are referring to, you see, but to its accompaniments and the manner of wearing them.

Over time its current form has evolved from attire arguably original to the Scottish Highlands, but that evolution is without question within Scotland. It could not and cannot evolve outside Scotland and still be called Scottish National or Highland Dress.

Scottish Highland Dress is alive today; it did not come to an end with a sketch in 1646, or a memory of 1746, or a painting in 1846, or a photo taken in 1946. It is evolving even as we think and write.

When a question is asked about how that dress is worn today – the conventions -- it is not possible for the answer to be expressed in terms of current custom or fashion in New South Wales, or Ontario, or Nebraska, or Cape Town, or Amsterdam -- but only in Scotland.

The tail does not wag the dog.