I can't remember ever seeing these shirts in GB. One of my friends in Grenoble has one. Two men turned up at another class in Spain both wearing identical black ghillies shirts. That really looked like a costume to me.
I too have one that I sometimes wear when asked to MC an evening in a non-Scottish context (Scottish theme & music, but with non-specialist public), but I'm not too keen to tell the truth. No jacket looks right with the big collar, so it's not ideal when it's cold, and you can't roll the sleeves up if it gets hot.
Just another of those products put on the market to keep the money coming in, and which we could quite well do without.
Martin (generally in a plain white shirt, especially when dancing).
I've never been tempted to wear one of these shirts with the kilt, for dancing or otherwise. They do look too costumey to me too.
I'm grateful to Matthew Newman for his post on the thread that Jamie referred to at the start of this one (here) for his scholarly deconstruction of the reasons people give for pairing this shirt with the kilt. And to Martin for providing me with practical reasons for not wearing it. Now I know that I am missing nothing by avoiding this garment.
I must admit, I am one of those who usually don't care for that style of shirt (I think the collar and lacing really look off to me but the rest of the shirt I actually do like the style such as the billowy sleeves).....
But!! I have to say Panache, your shirt is very nice and I think it's because the lacing is so subtle with the coloring matching the shirt so it doesn't stand out quite so much. I must also add that The F-H.C.A.G's gown is *very* lovely!
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