The Royal Mile

[Lyle1]

Agreed to a certain extent. It's nice to see young lads wearing the kilt, but they should do the unique attire honor and wear it correctly.

I know my boundaries, and in my opinion, what those lads are wearing in the photos in Edinburgh, is outside of my personal boundaries, but again, that's entirely my opinion and I am by no means attempting to tell anyone how they should wear their Highland attire. Just know this, there does exist a proper manner of wearing it.


Slainte,

You say that you are not attempting to tell anyone how to wear the kilt, but you do say that they are not wearing it correctly. That seems to me to be a contradiction. When you apply rules to the way in which a garment is to be worn and how it is not to be worn, you turn the garment into a uniform or, worse, a costume. Personally, I am not interested in wearing a uniform or a costume.

Perhaps the real problem here is simply that we are not describing the issues clearly. Are we really discussing two desperate topics -- highland dress (or Highland Dress) and the act of simply wearing the kilt?

Clearly the young men in the contested photographs are not wearing highland dress, and my sense is that they would not for a minute claim to be wearing highland dress. They are simply wearing a kilt as an item of daily wear, much in the way their pre-Victorian forbearers (assuming that most kilted young men in Edinburgh have Scottish ancestors) would have worn their kilts! It wasn't until the mid 1800's that the common rabble could even begin to afford the trappings of highland dress. Does anyone who espouses the virtues of highland dress want to suggest that the earliest kilted Scots were guilty of a fashion offense?

If there are really two issues here, then everyone is correct. Men (with apologies to the kilted female members of the forum) who wish to wear highland dress, should do so, and men who wish to simply wear the kilt, should also do so. And each group should, at the very least, be tolerant of the other. There will, of course, be some men who will want to do it both ways, but we can extend our tolerance to them, too.

[creagdhubh]

I can't help but agree with you, particularly the way the kilt is, too often, worn in such a sloppy way by some people. It REALLY upsets me to see the kilt worn like(most of) those in the pictures of Edinburghkiltie's.

I know there are those that say; "the kilt is only a piece of clothing", or,"its my kilt and I will wear it how I like",or "What has it got to do with you?" No doubt there are also umpteen other perfectly valid replies to justify how and why they are wearing the kilt so badly and of course they are right,.............from their point of view.

BUT they forget one thing! They just look damn stupid and, for what it is worth , that is my opinion.

Edinburghkiltie, I am not getting at you sir. You are only showing us what you see.

I agree with you Jock Scot! Well said old chap!

[artificer]

With every respect to those who hold the kilt 'sacred'... wasn't the kilt once worn whilst mucking out the goats? harvesting peat? probably emptying the lavies? and, as Downunder mentioned, going over the top?

For dressed events, a nice Sunday afternoon, dinner, formal occasions, etc, I think the kilt SHOULD be worn as the Victorians dictated and has been more or less 'fixed' since. For a day out at the football or rugby pitch, what's wrong with a bit of boot and scrunched hose? If it was okay for the trenchies, it'll do for me.

a few of the pix from #65, particularly the lad at Murrayfield, seem okay to me. Better people wear it with a more modern (in most cases, casual) twist than not wear it at all and have the kilt be relegated to the old folks home, and eventually, a museum.
Just my $.02 (.0133 GBP)

[creagdhubh]

With every respect to those who hold the kilt 'sacred'... wasn't the kilt once worn whilst mucking out the goats? harvesting peat? probably emptying the lavies? and, as Downunder mentioned, going over the top?

For dressed events, a nice Sunday afternoon, dinner, formal occasions, etc, I think the kilt SHOULD be worn as the Victorians dictated and has been more or less 'fixed' since. For a day out at the football or rugby pitch, what's wrong with a bit of boot and scrunched hose? If it was okay for the trenchies, it'll do for me.

a few of the pix from #65, particularly the lad at Murrayfield, seem okay to me. Better people wear it with a more modern (in most cases, casual) twist than not wear it at all and have the kilt be relegated to the old folks home, and eventually, a museum.
Just my $.02 (.0133 GBP)

Understand your point, thanks for your post.

[Bugbear]

Thanks, Matt!

That rainbow tartan usually gets the reaction you give in your post. And I do think they could have done a better aesthetic job of it, but imagine if your clan tartan looked like that...

Anyway, now I understand what you all are talking about.

I agree with your thoughts on the evening sporran, btw.

[xman]

That rainbow tartan usually gets the reaction you give in your post. And I do think they could have done a better aesthetic job of it, ...

I think the Rainbow Canada tartan is an improvement.

[Brian K]

Thanks, Matt!

That rainbow tartan usually gets the reaction you give in your post. And I do think they could have done a better aesthetic job of it, but imagine if your clan tartan looked like that...

Anyway, now I understand what you all are talking about.

I agree with your thoughts on the evening sporran, btw.

LOL, Ted, that tartan gets that reaction because it deserves it. If, as a gay man, I could only wear that...er...I hesitate to call it a tartan, oh well, I would never even consider wearing a kilt. I must see if I can design a better one. A friend of mine who also designs tartans (she's also a member here, but she doesn't post much) has designed what she calls a Soft Rainbow tartan, and it's lovely but the colors are somewhat muted. Maybe that's the only way to accomplish it, but I'd like to see if one can be developed with the traditional rainbow colors that isn't so...jarring as the one shown here.

Regards,

Brian

[Bugbear]

There you go, Brian, that can be your new task. Hope you come up with something.

* Perhaps even just incorporating a narrow rainbow stripe into a sett, along with other colors, might work.

[Bugbear]

Riverkilt has a thread on the Rainbow tartan that is closed because it is well over a year old now.

It was removed from the forum for a short time because someone made a rule breaking comment, then brought back after the comments were removed.

Before that, threads were just closed and moved to the penalty box; it did give the impression that LGBT was a discouraged topic on the forum.

I understand some people will have a negative reaction; I don't know what the solution is, though.

Things aren't like they were when I first joined, LGBT-wise, and that is nice. :d

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I have no problem with kilts being worn with grubby socks and rugby jerseys.... I just wonder why all those fellows are also wearing their nice dress Prince Charlie sporrans at the same time! :-)

Seriously, that's what bothered me the most in a lot of those photos -- the mish-mash of casual and formal wear that makes it appear that the wearers really don't know all that much about kilt wearing.

Respecting the traditions of Highland dress does not mean always dressing formally, or even always dressing nicely! But it does mean a certain care is taken to wear with kilt within the broader context of fashion and tradition that it has developed in, and not wearing it as a costume.

Wearing a formal sporran with your rugby jersey and scrunched down hose, to my eye, makes the whole thing look like a costume. "This is my kilt outfit" it seems to say. It matters not that the elements of the outfit really don't all go together.

If the chrome-cantled fur sporrans were simply replaced with plain leather day sporrans in most of those photos, they'd be ok. (I'm not even touching on the subject of Neo-Jacobite shirts, or rainbow kilts in this post, mind you!)