Familiarity Breeds Contempt

[OC Richard]

I don't care for that at all! A "dress" tartan, white hose, dirk belt peeking out from under the waistcoat, informal sporran, buckle-less ghillies, kilt pin worn too low and crookedly...

I was playing in pipe bands c1980 when the "arran knit" offwhite/natural hose became all the rage, and also c1990 when the dreaded stark white bobbletop/popcorn top piper's socks became all the rage. How white hose became standard for Evening Dress, I just don't understand. It never would have done in the old days.

When time for my marriage I opted for coloured hose, blue.



About ghillies, they show up in the 1860s in The Highlanders of Scotland, usually in tan leather, worn with outdoor dress. At that time they evidently were viewed as somewhat rustic.

By the 1920s ghillies had moved indoors, black, with nonfunctional decorative buckles affixed, and worn with Evening Dress. At this time ordinary shoes were usually worn with Outdoor Dress. (For Evening Dress, buckled ghillies never seem to have been nearly as popular as Mary Jane style buckle shoes and slip-on loafer style buckle shoes, and the military always used the latter styles for Levee dress and Mess dress, never the ghillies.) In my old Highland Dress catalogues the ghillies worn with Evening Dress always have buckles affixed, never plain.

Pipers, however, had always had a penchant for ghillies, and you see pipers wearing them both with outdoor dress and formal dress from the 1860s up to today, in the old days often with buckles affixed.

In any case the modern notion of Evening Dress = Prince Charlie + white hose + buckle-less ghillies has always struck me as a bit odd.