What kilt 'should' I wear?

[Alan H]

The Holyrood tartan (see my recent thread about my new kilt) was designed in 1977 to celebrate the Queens 50th Jubilee. It's a lovely tartan, and there's absolutely no reason whatsoever that you shouldn't wear it.

Are you a Marine or US Navy? Both of those services have their own tartans. There's a Confederate tartan.

California has a state tartan. So do Texas, Minnesota and a bunch of other states.

Bob C. on this board has a kilt made out of a tartan specifically for the "Border Families"....not a particular family, but the Borders, so if your English ancestors were up near the borders, then why not?

Black Watch
Scottish National
National Millennium
Flower of Scotland
Caledonia
Holyrood
Warrior

These are all Scottish tartans that have no clan affiliations.

You can wear all of the "Stewart" tartans...Royal (red), Black (mourning), Hunting (green), Gray Stewart, or dress Stewart (white). Dress Gordon is fair game. Look, there's a Philipino guy in my office who regularly wears a flannel shirt made out of Dress Gordon. I had a pair of pajamas when I was growing up in Royal Stewart. As Matt Newsome has pointed out, you can buy shortbread in tins painted with Royal Stewart. So don't stress over wearing the Stewart tartans. Burberrys is marketing EN MASSE a line of clothing, including scarves, umbrellas, checkbook covers and handbags all in a variant of the Thompson tartan, primarily in "camel".

Or, if you really want to get a non-clan affiiated tartan, and get a really special kilt made, get in on the next XMarks tartan order and send the material to the kiltmaker of your choice. The XMarks tartan is the pattern you see as the background on this web page. Rocky at USA kilts would make you a killer 6-yard wool kilt out of that material.