1 Kilt 10 Looks : A Visual Guide to Formality in Highland Attire

[OC Richard]

I'm just now seeing this thread... I'm still sort of an XMarks newbie and I'd just never got around to seeing what it's all about.

Those are great photos, wonderful collections of stuff!

The only time I did anything like that was back in the 1980's when I began working at a Highland Dress Outfitters and could get everything at cost.

So as to allow prospective music job clients to see what sorts of "looks" I could appear at their events in, I posed for a number of photos.

But... there are two different kilts!!! Sorry 'bout that. (British Columbia and MacDonald muted from House of Edgar.)

First is one of the few photos I have of myself wearing a Renaissance style shirt and vest, with kilt and belted plaid (which of course didn't exist at that time). It'll have to serve as the most "informal" photo. Remember when these photos were taken Utilikilts and "casual kilts" etc didn't exist and the traditional modes of Highland Dress still held sway.



Here's the full traditional Day Dress of the time: tweed jacket with co-ordinating self-coloured hose and Balmoral.



Here's the then-recent Argyll jacket look, with pure white hose, which at that time was beginning to take over the Pipe Band world. It's still the standard dress of Pipe Bands the world over. But, at that time wearing a black (not navy) Glengarry still looked too military for most, and a black (not navy) Balmoral was thought the most fitting headdress. That didn't last and the Glengarry took over.



Here's Evening Dress which of course required its own type of jacket, sporran, hose, and shoes. I actually had matching tartan hose at some point, evidently not when this photo was taken! I loved those vivid blue hose, which looked so good with that tartan.



And last but not least military-style Full Dress complete with sword and dirk etc with matching British Columbia hosetops.




Anyhow I haven't owned that stuff for decades, but got rid of it all as I gained weight etc.

Then recently I posed for a couple pictures showing first the typical modern Pipe Band look, this time with grey hose, and then the same kilt, jacket, and hat dressed up with Edwardian sporran and brooch, and fly plaid, tartan hose, and buckled shoes for a quasi-Edwardian look. (The tartan is Drummond of Perth muted from House of Edgar.)





(For you pipers out there, the pipes I'm playing back in the 1980's is a very old set of Glens c1860, ivory and plain silver. I switched bagcovers for the photos, claret for the muted MacDonald and blue for British Columbia. The new set is blackwood Dunbars fully mounted in engraved aluminum.)