As I'm wearing my utilikilt more I'm beginning to like the idea of getting a more traditional kilt. However, I have no Scottish ancestry that I know of (I'm English with a dash of Welsh and a smidgen of Belgian blood), and although my last name (Cooper) has a tartan associated with it (and I like the colour), I'm not sure if that's what I should wear. I'd like to hold to tradition in terms of wearing a kilt that's seen by rabid traditionalists as 'okay for me to wear', so I'm wondering what tartans are accepted by the most pedantic kilt aficionados as wearable for 'sassenachs'.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not 'bound' by tradition - if I saw a tartan that I just 'had' to have, I'd grab it without much thought about offending folks. If it comes to that, the Black Stewart tartan looks nicest to me. It's just that I thought it would be nice if my first tartan kilt obeyed 'the rules' if possible.

So what's the story?