Fly Plaid at Burns Supper?

[OC Richard]

As a former RSCDS dancer yes indeed I never wore accessories such as plaid, sgian, or dirk when dancing was likely to happen.

I've always been interested in history in general and the history of Highland Dress in particular and thus I take the long view on things.

Like any other form of fashion Highland Dress has gone through multiple stages of evolution with things going in and out of style at various points in time.

Formal Highland Dress had a quite large set of traditional accessories and throughout the 19th century it wasn't uncommon to see a gent wearing most or all of them when going out for an evening do.

The wearing of accessories was beginning to peter out in Edwardian times but World War One put the final kybosh on nearly all of them. By the 1920s men generally dressed for evening without the old accessories, which were

Dirk & dirk belt
Sword & sword belt
Plaid & plaid-brooch
pair of all-steel Highland pistols
Powder-horn
Sgian

with only the Sgian sometimes seen.

And so Highland Dress has stayed, as Jock Scott pointed out.

With my Historian's eye when somebody appears wearing even part of the Victorian panoply of accessories it seems like a Victorian costume rather than modern Highland Dress.

Here's a comparison of c1905 Evening Dress and the de-accessorised Evening Dress of the post-WWI period which is still in vogue today.



Here at left is a Victorian gent in full Evening Dress showing every possible accessory, and at right a gent around WWI showing far fewer accessories. Note that tartan or diced full hose, and buckled shoes, are still considered required. (Notice the right-hand gent is not wearing the Prince Charlie coatee, which was new at that time and considered only suitable for young men. Older gents were recommended to wear the traditional Doublet, which he is. Of course the left-hand gent isn't wearing the coatee as it wasn't yet invented.)