Hose Color Questions

[Nighthawk]

Or dye trying.....

Karl

Those of us the leather working world use that one on a regular basis...

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I think the blue looks fine. When I wear a weathered tartan similar to that I often reach for my pair of lovat blue hose. Grey will also work.

My advice for those who are a bit hesitant to select a color is to begin with the colors in the kilt itself. If you can tone with one of those colors, you will be in good shape. So that's an easy way to go about it.

But don't feel limited to that. You can also branch out and wear colors that are not also present in the tartan, but that compliment it. Also consider what else you might be wearing. For example, I don't think I'd recommend bottle green hose with that tartan necessarily, but if you were also wearing a bottle green pullover, then the hose would work.

[Kilted Karl]

Those of us the leather working world use that one on a regular basis...

I do some leather work but I have never dyed leather. I need to try though...

Karl

[Joshua]

Personally, I feel that a hose color "temperature" goes better than the actual color when matched with the kilt. For example, bold hose colors with modern or loud tartans, and subdued earth-tones with ancient and weathered tartans.

I have two tartans I mostly wear, Caledonia and Davidson Ancient.

I have TONS of different color hose, Bright "Pumpkin" Orange, Bright "Denim" Blue, Marled Oatmeal, Marled Olive, Black, and a cable-knit pseudo-marled Bottle Green.

Of those, I might wear all but the oatmeal, olive, and bottle green with the Caledonia. I much prefer the Orange hose with the Caledonia (even though the Modern really has no Orange in it)


I would not wear the Orange with the Davidson, and usually gravitate towards the earthier tones with it. At Burns Dinner this year I wore the Bottle Green hose:


There are exceptions. The bright denim blue hose I'll wear with either...

[piperdown]

The pair in the middle were dyed with tea and I just saved my wifes tea bags for a week and used those (about 30 I think) and used a 5 gallon bucket, half full, of luke warm water. The pair on the right were dyed with a pack Turkish coffee (It was way past use by date) that I found in the back of the pantry using the same bucket. I left then to soak overnight. While the water was warm I did squeeze thenm a few times to make sure the mixture was geeting into the fibres. I let them dry without rinsing, then cold water hand washed tem to get the gorunds out of the coffee pair

Thanks, a good weekend project.

[AKScott]

OP, I think you have a good selection of advice here. Only one thing to add, a tidbit I picked up from Steve Ashton in another thread a few weeks ago.

Forget you kilt and contrast/ coordinate your hose to whatever shirt/ vest/ jacket/ tie/ sweater you are wearing. If you tops and hose go together, it will work with whatever kilt you pick out of the closet.

So far I have found this to be true.

If you have a lot of upper bits that go with blue jeans, you will probably get a lot of mileage out of lovat blue or ancient blue hose, no matter what kilt(s) you have. There, I said it.

[madmacs]

OP, I think you have a good selection of advice here. Only one thing to add, a tidbit I picked up from Steve Ashton in another thread a few weeks ago.

Forget you kilt and contrast/ coordinate your hose to whatever shirt/ vest/ jacket/ tie/ sweater you are wearing. If you tops and hose go together, it will work with whatever kilt you pick out of the closet.

So far I have found this to be true.

If you have a lot of upper bits that go with blue jeans, you will probably get a lot of mileage out of lovat blue or ancient blue hose, no matter what kilt(s) you have. There, I said it.

That's what I tend to do... Take the kilt out of the picture

[OC Richard]

In my opinion the bottom version, that is, hose with colours not present in the tartan, works better.

You might not see what my 'eye' sees, but to me in the top picture the beige hose tends to drain the beige out of the kilt, weakening the tartan.

Here's another example of the same thing. To my eye the tartan hose (and charcoal grey hose on the far left) are neutral, neither weakening nor strengthening the kilt. But the seafoam green plain hose of the gent second from left, and light grey plain hose of the gent third from left, drains those colours out of their respective kilts, weakening the kilts.



There are many, many examples on this forum of great contrasting hose, but to me this is the most amazing



He's quite the exception, as most men in Highlanders of Scotland are wearing diced or tartan hose which match (at least somewhat) their kilts.

And if I can humbly show the way the claret hose work great with Isle of Skye, which tartan contains no claret



And if I may share a fellow XMarker's photo which is a terrific example of non-matching hose helping make a lovely overall "look"

[creagdhubh]

Great points, Matt and Richard!

[CopperNGold]

Kilted Karl If you don't like your white/cream hose any more and they are of a wool or primarily wool constuction you can always dye them with tea or coffee. I have dyed several wool ones with good results. It's a lot cheaper than buying new ones and you are recycling what you have.

Here are a few I've done

Surely those are Chai and Americano!