Ghillie brogues - why the dislike and resentment..?

[OC Richard]

Leap forward to the early 20th century and the first edition of The Scottish Tartans published by W & AK Johnston.

I have three copies, all having identical text, the internal evidence indicating a date between 1916 and 1921.

However the illustrations evidently showing modern current Highland Dress are rather out-of-date, showing the fully-laced doublets popular in the 1890s. (I haven't been able to identify the artist.)

More germane to this discussion are the illustrations apparently purporting to show "ancient" Highlanders. As we can see they're often wearing a mix of the then-current styles and imagined "ancient" styles seemingly derived from McIan.



The illustrations showing the current modern Highland Dress were already seriously out of date by WWI, so sometime in the interwar years new illustrations by William Semple were commissioned.

Up until after WWII these books didn't carry publishing dates, so it's impossible to know when the Semple illustrations were done. The illustrations showing current modern Highland Dress show the dress of the 1920s and 1930s though it appears the book's publishing was delayed until 1945.

Concerning us here are the illustrations purporting to show "ancient' Highlanders, which appear to show more McIan influence than the illustrations of the first edition.

This book, with these interwar illustrations, has gone through numerous editions and is probably still in print. I think it's these, and the McIan illustrations, which have had the greatest influence on the public imagination.