White Hose

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Here's the thing (and Downunder Kilt has pretty much nailed it)-- kilt wearing in Scotland really wasn't wide spread (or popular) until all Scots (Highland, Lowland, and the Borders) began to assume the kilt as "the national dress of Scotland". So we are really looking at Highland attire as it was worn by those who set style and fashions. In other words, we are looking at how the middle-class Scots defined their sense of "national dress" in the latter half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The advent of cheap chemical dyes, and inexpensive coloured woolen yarn, meant that hose in colours other than "natural" were widely available at this time.

Something else to consider is that from the earliest times wool was dyed in the Highlands using "free" dyes made from a variety of local plants. So from the beginning of wearing hose with the kilt, coloured yarns -- and thus coloured hose -- would have been widely available. Likewise, early hose would have been cut from the web of the tartan, not knit. By the time that these bag hose had been virtually replaced by knitted hose, the custom of coloured hose was totally ingrained with the Highland folk who wore the kilt.

As others have pointed out, white hose first appear in any numbers in the 1960's. As a lad I can well remember seeing bundles of white, Navy surplus, "sea boot socks" being sold at the Army & Navy Store on Leith Walk, and touted as perfect for wear with the kilt. For less than a tenner one could purchase a surplus kilt, a pair of sea boot socks, and an ex-WD sporran and still have enough left over for the price of a pint!

Of course, the major beneficiaries of the surplus sea boot socks were pipe bands, and in short order bands were seen in surplus white socks. Sadly, especially in North America, most civilians model their dress on pipers as this is usually the only exposure they have to wearing the kilt. And since pipers usually wear white socks...

So, if one wishes to object to white socks worn with the kilt, he can do so on the grounds that they are neither historical nor traditional, and that they owe their existence to canny military surplus dealers in the cash-strapped Scotland of the 1960s.