Is it possible to wear a kilt and not look like you're from Scotland?

[neloon]

I don't know about you Alan, but not for the first time in my life I don't seem to qualify.

Yes, these multiple-choice questions are a pain,
Alan

[Jock Scot]

Here's the link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...n-Charles.html

That's very interesting! Apparently the kilt is not so universally loved in Scotland. Instead, there are some deeply ambivalent feelings about it

As roughly four fifths of Scotland's population live in the lowlands, that is not really surprising.

[neloon]

That's very interesting! Apparently the kilt is not so universally loved in Scotland. Instead, there are some deeply ambivalent feelings about it

Remember this is a journalist's review as he struggles to fill column-inches with any old nonsense
Alan

[OC Richard]

America will never have a National Dress. Again, we're too big and too heterogenous to ever have a unified ethnic and cultural heritage.

No country has a unified ethnic and cultural heritage.

"National Dress" is defined by others- it's the world's stereotype- in one way, and perhaps by those within the country in a different way.

Highland Dress has long been Scotland's National Dress in the eyes of the rest of the world. Scotland itself seems to have officially bought into it when it put its entire infantry into kilts.

America indeed has a National Dress in the eyes of the world- stick a cowboy hat on somebody's head and anyone on earth will identify the person as an American. It's false of course, Western Wear being indigenous to a small fraction of USA's (and Canada's) population.

Likewise the word "Yankee" properly refers to the people within a tiny area, but is used by the world to refer to Americans in general.

[SeumasA]

America indeed has a National Dress in the eyes of the world- stick a cowboy hat on somebody's head and anyone on earth will identify the person as an American.

Are you sure it's just the hat that identifies me as an American?

[The Q]

Nope, I'm known to wear the near cousin of that hat, the Australian cattle drovers hat.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hawkins-Aus...australian+hat
and I'm neither American or Austrailian..

[OC Richard]

I'm not saying the stereotype is real- I stated that these stereotypes are false- yet they're recognized around the world.

Show this photo to people in China, or Zimbabwe, or pretty much anywhere else, and ask them to identify where the person is from



Now ask somebody in Maine the same question and you'll get more specificity.

Throw a kilt on anyone, even Superman, and he becomes a Scotsman



Now back home we have a different sort of stereotype, the Daniel Boone type frontiersman, which we embrace. Where did this costume come from? It was the dress of the Native Americans of Appalachia, which the early white settlers adopted.



Then there's this stereotype of my people. (All four of my grandparents were born in log cabins in the hollers.) The fact that you will never actually see anybody looking like this in Appalachia doesn't alter the fact that people all over the USA recognize this as being a hillbilly. We embrace this too; you see images like this all over West Virginia. We love poking fun at ourselves. (Well you will see people wearing those overalls! But with a baseball hat, mesh back, with a seed, truck, or gun company logo on the front.)



Heck there was an entire TV show dedicated to making fun of my people. I loved that show!

[Nathan]

I think if you wear a kilt in Canada you look like a Scot, a person of Scottish descent or someone participating in a Scottish pursuit.

When I wear my kilt I have little details to point to my Cape Breton heritage. Those in the know pick them up but I'm sure they're lost on most.

I wonder if those Scots who are bemused by diaspora ethnic Scots wearing the kilt for Scottish festivals and the like are equally bemused when ethnic minorities living in Scotland do the same thing. Are they playing at being South Asian if they wear a Kurtha pajama outside India?

In any case, I'm not bothered. I'm a Cape Bretoner with or without the kilt on. A kilt, in the proper conext, is not a bizarre sight in Cape Breton. Everyone understands what the wearer is saying b wearing his kilt and nobody is too fussed by it.

That said, you would raise eyebrows if you wore a kilt daily or outside of appropriate functions.

[Nathan]

I had another thought based on Alan's original question. It IS possible to wear the kilt and not look like you're from Scotland.

If I see a guy in a tank top with a giant Scottish clan badge tattooed on his shoulder, giant black boots and a claymore, I usually think, "that guy is probably not from Scotland"

[Liam]

I'm not saying the stereotype is real- I stated that these stereotypes are false- yet they're recognized around the world.

Show this photo to people in China, or Zimbabwe, or pretty much anywhere else, and ask them to identify where the person is from



Now ask somebody in Maine the same question and you'll get more specificity.....

Or just as likely Calgary, Alberta during Stampede week, or in ranching country anytime.