Scathing Attack on White Socks

[OC Richard]

Getting away from ordinary European men's fashion, powdered wigs, etc (I can't help but think of Hugh Lawrie in Black Adder playing the foppish prince) and looking at Highland Dress, we might well take the long look.

1) In all the early portraits, from the earliest ones up through the early part of the 19th century, the hose are diced.

2) By mid 19th century we can see a nascent Day Dress emerging; by the 1860s, as seen in The Highlanders of Scotland, plain mid-grey, light grey, and taupe hose are often seen.

3) In the rigidly compartmentalized Highland Dress seen in the first half of the 20th century it's tartan or diced hose for Evening Dress, plain hose in a rather limited range of colours for Day/Outdoor Dress (Lovat Green, Lovat Blue, oatmeal, etc).

This style of Highland Dress was still to be seen when I first became a kiltwearer in the mid-1970s. So little's the wonder that when I first began seeing cream/offwhite hose (with ghillies) being substituted for the traditional tartan/diced hose (with buckled shoes) with Evening Dress it looked rather tawdry, cheap, out of place, and untraditional.

Now the heavy handknit Aran hose, in cream/offwhite, worn in Day Dress, that's another matter altogether. I've always loved the way these hose look with a Harris Tweed kilt jacket etc.

Also a different issue are the pure stark white bobbletop hose adopted en masse by the pipe band world in the latter 1980s, as these were part of an entire kit which was neither, strictly speaking, Day Dress nor Evening Dress.