Semi-Dress or Daywear?

[Jock Scot]

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Which is a very longwinded way of saying that, to me, tweed is tweed, and tweed is Day Dress.

Barathea and velvet are Evening Dress, and by no means confined to black.

I agree with much of what you have said OCR although I take issue with two of your points.

Firstly, civilian pipe band attire trends is an issue entirely for bands and has nothing to do with general civilian kilt attire trends. Yes, those trends might run parallel with each other from time to time but that is all.

Secondly, the idea that tweed is entirely for day attire mis represents what actually is and has been been done in the Scottish Highlands for certainly nearly(who can remember their first couple of years?) the last 80 years to my personal knowledge.

What one wore in the evening, particularly if one was having guests ,or if one had an invitation to visit elsewhere has always been somewhat of a lottery to some and a complete mystery to others. However, what was/is worn depended how the invitation was worded and experience and this still holds true today.

Two words were the key to how we dress if we were/are giving an invitation or receiving one for an evening event. “Supper” or “dinner” were/are the two critical indicators to the dress required. Supper requires tweed and dinner requires black tie etc.. Likewise, if the invitation was to pop round for a “wee drink with a few friends” then ones experience would come to the fore, but usually that would mean tweed, but .........not always! A fair indicator in this case is, if the invitation is verbal then tweed is the choice and if it’s written then black tie is the norm. If in doubt, it never hurts to ask!

My circle of friends , as I still do myself on occasion, have no hesitation to ring round, or ask one another when meeting, what the "form" is at "Freddie and "Linda's do " or "my do" next week? Some might know, some might not, but by the "jungle telegraph" we all --------well, nearly always------end up wearing the hosts intended dress requirements.

So all in all your blanket tweed for day attire etc., is far too much of a simplification, even in today’s rather more casual attention to attire details.