Ghillie brogues - why the dislike and resentment..?

[Troglodyte]

Why are Ghillies hated?

In Pipe Band circles Ghillies are generally hated

1) because they're part of the band costume that everyone has to wear to compete in. The whole costume is hated, not just the shoes.

2) because so many band people are wearing uncomfortable Ghillies.

Traditional kiltwearers hate them because they're tinged with the dual stink of Kilt Hire Shops and Pipe Band costumes.

But is this not true of all elements of Highland dress?

It is human nature to dislike or resent what we are 'forced' to do, so the opposition to ghillie-brogues is probably more the association the individual gives to them than careful reasoning.

The so-called Traditional Kilters' stance on various elements of Highland dress is curious to me - being what seems to be based on the inter-war years catalogue ideal that the prevailing fashions and trends lent to it.

It could be said that nothing about the upper-body garments have any real historic value to them, and the tweed-coatee-and-weskit that we all now love so much is essentially English leisure styles adapted to kilt-wear.

Certainly by the 1940s, this Traditionl Kilters' style was being heavily criticised in print, for its continual dulling-down of Highland style to match more closely the prevailing Lowland fasions. Lord Lyon condemned it as a desire of the self-concious, and called it un-Scottish and contemptible.

MacIan's portraits from the 1840s show various representatives of the clans in ghillies - or, as the descriptions usually say, Brog - so they have been appearing in illustrations for almost two centuries, even if not in modern production form.

All of which makes me wonder about the ghillie-brogue. The style and antiquity is at least double that of the 'contemptible' tweed-and-Tattersall of the TKs, and far more appropriate than any English shoe style.

As for comfort, is that not a matter of fit? Any badly-fitting shoe will be uncomfortable, whatever the style I should say.

Myself, I have formed the impression that anti-ghillie views are based less on historical evidence than on what they have come to represent to some out-spoken individuals, who then influence the unwitting.

It would be easy to argue that the anti-ghillie hostility could just as easily (and possibly more rightly) be directed at the tweed coatee, and show it up as a kind of 1930s cos-play. Surely the true traditionalists ought to be arguing for the far more authentic twin waistcoat style that was frequently noted prior to the Dress Act.

Perhaps the use of 'Traditional' with kilters is the problem - surely only what was habitually worn prior to the ban on Highland dress is authentic, and everything that has come after the Act is Revivalist. If mid-20th century styles are acceptable as traditional, why not the footwear that evolved a century or more before from the original 'Brog'?