What is Traditional Highland Dress?

[MacBean]

In my experience, the answer is "yes." A few examples:
-Prince Charlies worn with t-shirts in 90 degree heat at GMHG.
-Suede knee-high moccasins worn with the kilt, usually with Native American pouches, necklaces, etc.
-"Jacobite/Clansmen" shirts worn with tweed jackets.
-swords, dirks, two-handed claymores worn with day dress, sometimes accompanied by "facepaint".
-A homemade furry sporran with a rack of whitetail antlers mounted on it.
-Veterans sporting every geegaw, doodad, and fourragere ever stocked at the Exchange on their SAMS "uniform".

I chalk it up, though, to the general ignorance of many people wearing kilts at "highland games" events, rather than a conscious decision to rebel against good taste. There just aren't very many examples of "traditional highland dress" at the "Scottish" events in North Carolina. Without good examples of traditional highland dress, I'm not surprised when we Americans get it so dorked up...

David

Fair enough, David. I've never been to an American "Highland Game", don't own a PC or a Jacobite shirt; and have little experience with kilts. I can certainly understand how micturating on someone else's tradition in the way you describe offends. However, "hollow arrogance ... largely based on insecurity as much as it is a lack of social understanding." ... that's a bit elitist, no?

[Jock Scot]

Fair enough, David. I've never been to an American "Highland Game", don't own a PC or a Jacobite shirt; and have little experience with kilts. I can certainly understand how micturating on someone else's tradition in the way you describe offends. However, "hollow arrogance ... largely based on insecurity as much as it is a lack of social understanding." ... that's a bit elitist, no?

With the greatest of respect, no it is not elitist. It most certainly is to do with pride, national pride though. Now as a Scot I have learned about the kilt being worn in many, to my Highland Scots eyes, obscure ways and we only need to see what the "Tartan army" get up to to know that. So it is no big deal if others from other nations want to do the same. Now many(most?) of the "Tartan Army" know full well that they are not wearing the kilt traditionally, which to us Scots and Highland Scots in particular, is entirely another matter altogether. I am not convinced that the majority of the rest of the world do understand.

That is fine by me as most of the world see kilts come and kilts go and that is that. Where I have trouble is the people from abroad that are interested enough in the kilt to buy one, wear the kilt perhaps and join a kilt website like this and read, contribute, and hopefully learn something about the deeper meaning of the kilt to the Scots. Now, none of us Scots expect that the kilt should be worn exactly as we do, whether that is in a "Tartan Army" way, or any other way. Apart from, I repeat, apart from the traditional way where we are dealing with a completely different beast with a far deeper historical and cultural mindset. However it really does rankle when others do tell us Scots that "to hell with what you say about your national dress we are going to do what we like". Frankly that is insulting and demonstrates an intentional slight of the deep pride of our national attire that many non Scots so utterly misunderstand.

Genuine ignorance I understand and readily accept. Information and advice that has been asked for and that is willingly and genuinely given and is absorbed, thought about, adapted and even quietly rejected is fine by me. What is not fine, is information asked for and then loudly ridiculed, demonstrably ignored, or worse still, when a non Scot tells a Scot how to wear his National Dress in a traditional manner.That is absolutely nothing to do with elitism and everything to do with out and out arrogance of some non Scots.

[MacBean]

With the greatest of respect, no it is not elitist ... when a non Scot tells a Scot how to wear his National Dress in a traditional manner.That is absolutely nothing to do with elitism and everything to do with out and out arrogance of some non Scots.

I probably shouldn't chase this one. I guess I missed the post where a non-Scot told a Scot how to wear his National Dress or reported someone else actually having done this. Perhaps someone can make me wiser.

[OC Richard]

Some random thoughts...

About caps: It's interesting that the founder of The Scottish Fiddlers Of Los Angeles, Colin Gordon, the only actual Scot in the group, invariably wore a deerstalker with kilts. Makes sense: we have a lot of sun, and the deerstalker keeps the sun both off the face and off the back of the neck, the places you really can get sunburned here. (By the way, it's strange perhaps that Los Angeles was home both to the first Strathspey & Reel Society outside of Scotland itself, and also home to the largest branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society on earth. The huge LA branch has since split up into two or three smaller branches.)

About baseball caps: Back in the 70's it always struck me, on visits back to the South, how all men and boys seemed to wear them. Almost nobody wore them in California at that time. Now they're very common here.
What's more, baseball caps have become standard Pipe Band dress. Not only American pipe bands, but pipe bands in Scotland and everywhere else have baseball caps made up with the band's name and/or logo on them, which band members wear whenever they're not actually performing.

About Highland Dress in the USA: Indeed here can be seen, at any US Highland Games, the wackiest possible mixing of various time periods and modes of Highland Dress on a single person. It can involve such things as 18th century shirts and great kilts worn with Prince Charlies and modern bonnets and any other anachronisms you can imagine. Add some Native American moccassins, modern sunglasses and mobile phones, and you've got the picture.
One guy had ghillies with no socks, a bit of bare leg, and then some military diced hosetops, a great kilt, antique long horsehair military sporran, Victorian dirk, Jacobite shirt, targe and claymore, topped off with a crudely knit bonnet with long feather. One sees this sort of thing at every Games.