Late posting

[Piobair]

Nice looking kilt! If anything, I'd bring the hose up a bit and the sporran down.

[Liam]

Nice looking kilt! If anything, I'd bring the hose up a bit and the sporran down.

I would disagree... I think both are fine... but we all have our personal style often based on our bodily shape.
Slainte

[Piobair]

Not entirely sure how body type comes in to play. I suggested bringing the sporran down because when worn that close to the belt, the ball on top of the cantle frequently clips the bottoms of the buckle. As for the hose, he’s a little low on the shin, so his very nice knees aren’t quite center-frame.

But, as you noted, it is subjective. And hey, you’re the mod.

[Mike S]

I'll split the difference. I think the sporran height is just fine, but might bring the hose up just a wee bit.

[OC Richard]

Nice looking kilt! If anything, I'd bring the hose up a bit and the sporran down.

There we will have to disagree! His hose look perfect to me.

The subject of kilt length and/or hose height comes up often, and I've shown a number of pictures from the 18th century through to today showing that these things have stayed fairly consistent.

It's true that there's a quite recent fad amongst members of civilian pipe bands to wear their kilts down around their hips like jeans and pull up their socks all the way to their knees, leaving little or no knee showing. This flies in the face of around 300 years of tradition.

I have hundreds of pictures, but one from each of three centuries will suffice

18th century



19th century



20th century

[Piobair]

The example of 20th century hose height (not to mention cuff size) doesn’t quite follow the other examples, but I think represents a pretty good model of where to shoot for nonetheless. And I don’t know if the poor dress habits of pipe bands is really a fad and more a perennial bad habit. I think it’s less to do with an active attempt to buck tradition than the result of limited uniform resources, poor oversight by the quartermaster and senior band members, and lack of experience. Ragardless of how you classify the trend, it does send an unfortunate message to would-be kilt wearers.

At the risk of encouraging further piling on, I’ll note that I’m not advocating that the poster pull his hose up to his knees or the hem of his kilt down to his shins. OP asked for an opinion and I gave one.