Quote Originally Posted by thescot View Post
Actually white hose with formal and black tie wear are primarily the result of kilt rental operations who find it cheaper to produce and stock white hose only. They can offer white hose to match any tartan, but with different colors, they would have to stock more pairs to match the tartans. And, you can generally buy white or off-white hose cheaper than you can colored hose. it is my understanding that one never saw white hose 50 to 75 years ago. (Of course, styles do change, but . . . )

For a look at some very formal outfits from one of the high-dollar, er, high-pound outfits in Scotland, see Kinloch Anderson's site at http://www.kinlochanderson-kilts.com...ml?id=vYBCrUdQ and note that only two of the pictures show a model with white hose. the rest wear dark solid colors or dark argyl hose. (The latter are very expensive!)

Actually it always boils down to a matter of taste. I won't quote my favorite Latine phrase again here, but there really is no disputing taste. Like I said, I wear white hose, too (see photos from our Burns Supper), but the colored hose are just as formal. And I have come to prerfer them.
Actually off-white, machine made hose (white hose were left to uniforms) for formal attire came into fashion before the kilt rental industry really got started. The matching argyle hose had started to fall out of fashion as the style got away from the tartan-head-to-toe look and went more for a simpler "tux" look.

Dark hose for a while were definitely for day wear. That is changing somewhat, but the hose should be a dark colour, black, bottle green, navy etc. Leave the lovat colours and grey for day wear since they match the day jackets of the same colours. Hand knitted for formal wear also fell out of fashion as the machine hose fitted better and were considered to have a finer finish to them which was appropriate for more formal occasions.