Scathing Attack on White Socks

[McClef]

Repeat after me 1000 times:

"There are NO kilt police"

[Kilted Cole]

Repeat after me 1000 times:

"There are NO kilt police"

After repeating.......must I write it on the chalk board just as many?

[Tobus]

The only outfit white socks don't ruin is a sports kit, they add.

"Unless you're exercising there is absolutely no appropriate moment to wear white socks," says Alex Bilmes, editor of Esquire magazine.

I hereby challenge Mr. Bilmes to come down here to Texas and look at all of us wearing Wranglers and cowboy boots, and attempt to even guess what colour our socks are, much less tell us whether they're "ruining" our outfits.

Not that I care what some dweeb who gets paid to write about socks thinks...

[McClef]

After repeating.......must I write it on the chalk board just as many?

No, that's only for a second offense.

[John_Carrick]

I'm joining The Resistance!

[mookien]

John: Very nice outfit, especially for outdoors. I like the light (if not white) shirt under the dark (if not black) sweater. I would have probably chosen red flashes/garters for the red overstripes in the McLeod, ... picky, picky, picky.

John

[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.

[Father Bill]

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.

I also think they look wonderful with a cable-knit pullover sweater.

[walkerk]

All these fashion rules on the anniversary of Straw Hat Riot Day. Coincidence?

[mookien]

No wonder there was a riot!