What level of dress would you classify this?

[Bugbear]

...For sure, if you like the look then that is fine. But please take off those rose tinted spectacles.

Oh no, Jock. Now I've got that John Conlee toon, "Rose Colored Glasses," stuck in my head; it's a waltz.

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., by James Boswell (EBook #6018).
Boswell does describe tartan hose being worn by everyday Islanders, but no sporrans... in 1773. Just joking with you.

[Jock Scot]

Good point, Jock, as always.

Let me rephrase that:

"..there was a time that horsehair sporrans and tartan hose could be worn around the clock..."

I didn't mean to imply that that is what everyone was wearing all the time, more that the standards of dress were quite different at the time so they could be worn at all hours, with "coarser" jackets, etc.

I think for the average Highlander of that time "rags" would be a more apt decription for their attire.

[Urchurdan]

One of the officials at the Braemar Gathering this year was dressed very like that, except he had on plain coloured hose. He wasn't the only one wearing a long hair sporran either. Personally, its not my cup of tea, but it certainly didn't raise an eyebrow among the landed gentry there.
I will trawl my pics and see if I caught him on one of them.

[Urchurdan]

I found that manny on one of the pics my wife took, sorry about the quality, he is in the group on the right hand side - he is wearing red hose. As I said, he certainly wasn't out of place among all the other gentry there.
I have added a pic of me wearing my Scottish/American kilt on it's first outing.
For anyone who knows Braemar, we were in the 'cheap' seats, ie the terraces on the right hand side, so the wife is upslope from me, it makes the kilt look a taddy long.
However, it does demonstrate the more moderate day wear sporran the others are talking about I think.

[OC Richard]

I really like the outfit in the photos shown in the original post.

It could have been plucked right out of the third quarter of the 19th century, save for the style of shirt and necktie.

At that time long hair sporrans were worn in all sorts of Highland Dress (the modern "evening" and "day" sporrans having not yet evolved) and it was quite common to wear tartan hose with tweed day jackets (though selfcoloured grey hose were common also).

[Tobus]

The only suggestion that I would make is to move your kilt pin much closer to the bottom edge of the kilt apron. In theory, the kilt pin is there to keep the apron from blowing open.

I think the reason this kilt pin ended up higher than I thought is because the part that pins to the apron is a few inches below the actual crest. I pinned it where I thought it should be, but didn't snap to the fact that the visible part would be a couple of inches above it. I usually wear a sword-theme clan crest kilt pin toward the bottom of the apron, but figured I would wear this one for dressing up, and move it up higher than normal because I don't want to damage the little feathers on it. I'll move it down a bit, though.

Oh yeah- and SMILE!!

LOL, people say that a lot when they see pictures of me. I may not be smiling, but I'm not frowning... although it may look that way. That's just my normal expression. I have a hard time putting on a fake smile for pictures. It comes off looking fake and stupid.

Without derailing the thread, but I am not at all sure you are right in saying"-----there was a time that horsehair sporrans and tartan hose were what was worn around the clock---". They were certainly worn for the occasion by the subjects posing and painted by commercially minded romantic artists who could sell their works to starry eyed and willing customers. But please do not make the mistake of thinking that these outfits were every day wear for Highlanders.

Jock, I understand your position on this, and you are most certainly correct that hair sporrans were not worn all the time by all kilted gentlemen. But by the same token, I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that they were only worn for portraits. The fact that hair sporrans and tartan hose show up across the board, even when depicting men in casual/working situations, seems to suggest that they were somewhat commonplace.

I would also consider the fact that men of that era didn't have closets full of different outfits or racks of different sporrans from which to choose. It seems more likely that if we see them in portraits wearing hair sporrans, it's because that's the only sporran they had. And they wore it for whatever activity they were doing. The same likely applies with hose. They may have had one or two pair of hose, and they wore what they had. Back then, tartan hose likely didn't cost 4 times what plain hose did, like they do today.

At any rate, your points are well taken and I appreciate your advice as always.

I really like the outfit in the photos shown in the original post.

It could have been plucked right out of the third quarter of the 19th century, save for the style of shirt and necktie.

At that time long hair sporrans were worn in all sorts of Highland Dress (the modern "evening" and "day" sporrans having not yet evolved) and it was quite common to wear tartan hose with tweed day jackets (though selfcoloured grey hose were common also).

I agree, the modern "evening" and "day" sporrans hadn't evolved yet. If men didn't wear hair sporrans, what did they wear? I don't see much evidence of anything being worn but hair sporrans.

Did men back then fuss over what was "proper" for day wear, smart day wear, black tie, white tie, etc.? Did those conventions even exist amongst Highlanders of the day? I doubt it.

[Jock Scot]

Tobus.

In those days most Highlanders went barefoot so hose and sporrans were not likely to be much of a concern, in fact they were so poor that they probably did not even know they existed! Why are there no pictures?Well the true highlander would not be much of a sale pitch for the romantic sales dream of an astute artist, with his subject dressed in rags, now would he? Sorry you are really barking up the wrong tree here.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I actually like this look. Yes, as Jock has pointed out, it is more than likely what one would have seen at Balmoral rather than else where in 19th century Scotland (look at the photos of John Brown for a comparison). But it does have a formality that I think looks rather nice, especially compared to a lot of the (slovenly?) informal attire one sees to today.

Where would I wear it? Well, it is rather somber, so definitely to funerals and to weddings of less-than-favored nieces. Dinners at my club, meetings with my banker, and pretty much any where else where I had to present a no-nonsense appearance.

Like I said, I like it. I think the outfit looks good. It's eccentric in a very personal way, which in my mind is a good thing-- I think it can best be summed up with the word "style", which is different than stylish.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I agree, the modern "evening" and "day" sporrans hadn't evolved yet. If men didn't wear hair sporrans, what did they wear? I don't see much evidence of anything being worn but hair sporrans.

Actually there are lots of examples of what we now characterize as "day wear" or "evening wear" sporrans prior to the mid-19th century rise in popularity of the horse hair sporran as an item of civilian attire. But, and this is important to remember, as Jock has pointed out, in the mid-19th century Highland attire was something that was almost exclusively a middle-class and upper class indulgence. Many of the Highlanders themselves lived in the most dire conditions of poverty-- dressed in rags, as Jock put it-- and totally unaware of the then current fashions in Highland attire as worn by a minority of the more well-off portions of Scottish society.

Did men back then fuss over what was "proper" for day wear, smart day wear, black tie, white tie, etc.? Did those conventions even exist amongst Highlanders of the day? I doubt it.

"Back then" is a rather sweeping statement, but if, for the sake of discussion, we draw an arbitrary line at 1837 (the year Victoria ascended the throne), then yes, those who dressed (as opposed to those who merely put on clothes to work in the fields or factories) did fuss over what was proper. We see this in Victorian literature-- Thackery, Conan Doyle, Dickens, Jane Austin, all are at pains to describe (often in excruciating detail) the every day dress of their characters and to comment when they were not properly dressed for the time of day or the occasion.

You can bet those conventions existed for the few in Scotland who wore Highland attire; morning dress is morning dress whether kilted or in trousers, and evening dress would be the same for all gentlemen, kilted or otherwise. Loudon Douglas MacQueen, writing before the First World War (The Kilt, a Manual of Scottish National Dress) was a Victorian gentleman, writing at the end of the Edwardian era, who was at pains to pass down to future generations the conventions of Highland attire. So yes, "back then", the few men who could afford to wear Highland attire "fussed" over it just as much as someone new to Highland attire today should "fuss" over getting it right.

Since the 1960s and 70s there has been an explosion in the popularity of Highland attire, and more people wear Highland attire today than at any time in the past. This is, in my opinion, a good thing. That fewer people take the time and effort to "fuss" over the way they wear Highland attire today, than at any time in the past, is, in my opinion, an unprecedented and unfortunate state of affairs. I'm not talking about the personal eccentricity of wearing a horse hair sporran for day wear with a jacket and tie-- that's fine-- but rather I lament the sloppy and often slovenly way in which Highland attire is worn due to ignorance or indifference.

Something that did not happen "back then".

[BobsYourUncle]

Tobus.

In those days most Highlanders went barefoot so hose and sporrans were not likely to be much of a concern, in fact they were so poor that they probably did not even know they existed! Why are there no pictures?Well the true highlander would not be much of a sale pitch for the romantic sales dream of an astute artist, with his subject dressed in rags, now would he? Sorry you are really barking up the wrong tree here.

However, Jock I must agree with Tobus and disagree with you somewhat here. You, Jock are correct that most highlanders in the period we are talking about were shockingly poor, did not have either shoes or hose at all, much less sets of plain and argyll to choose from. However, Tobus is correct that those who did possess the means are portrayed contemporaneously as wearing both long hair sporrans and argyll hose as daywear.

Jock, where I disagree with your statements centers around your assertion that the paintings and portraiture are wholly unreliable as evidence of period clothing. Paintings and portraiture will never be evidence of what crofters routinely wore, or what folks living subsistence existences wore--as you say, they wore rags if they had anything at all. Yet for those who had the means, and who appeared for portraits, paintings and photographs, it would be inaccurate to insist that there was no truth or evidence to be had from those, as to what people of some means were wearing.

While Kenneth Macleay's watercolors were commissioned in the course of the Victorian era in which much fraudulent romanticising took place of the Highlands and Highland clothing, not all contemporary photos or portraiture was fraudulent. In too many threads on this forum, Kenneth MacLeay's work has been lumped in with the fraudsters, without credit being given for any accuracy whatsoever. Those who off handedly dismiss the accuracy of MacLeay's work would do well to actually read the description of how his work was done, and the carefully recorded information that goes along with each portrait in more recent additions of "The Highlanders of Scotland". While it would be inaccurate to conclude that what is represented therein was what every man jack of them was wearing in Scotland, it is equally wrong to say that what is shown is fraudulent.

MacLeay began his work in 1865, with the portraits of the workers on the Balmoral estate. During the next several years, after a delay caused by illness in 1866, he traveled to Dunkeld to paint the Atholemen in February 1867, that summer he was in Perthshire painting Menzies, Stewarts, etc; by October 1867, he had finished two Campbell portraits and gone on to Badenoch to paint MacPhersons, and so on. See The Highlanders of Scotland, The Complete Watercolours Commissioned by Queen Victoria from Kenneth MacLeay of her Scottish Retainers and Clansmen, (c) HM The Queen, 1986, Hagerston Press, London, pp. 10-15.

MacLeay went "into the field" to paint actual men where they lived. I have no doubt that these men presented themselves in their best finery, and doubt very much that they dressed in this fashion on a daily basis, BUT it was their own clothes, not clothes fancifully imagined by MacLeay, or costumes they were asked to wear by the Queen. In the right circumstances, for certain functions, these are the clothes that they wore.

Here is an example from the above cited work in furtherance of my point:

This is a contemporary photo of Wille Duff,



Highlanders, p. 13

Here is how MacLeay rendered him in portrait:



Highlanders, MacLeay # 10

While MacLeay cleaned him up a bit, he was quite accurate in his depiction. Mr. Duff does not appear to be at all wealthy, and does not appear to have been dressed in a fraudulent Brigadoon costume by anyone.

It is time for MacLeay's work to be accorded the level of accuracy it deserves. Not everyone could dress the way the people in MacLeay's work did, but some actually could and sometimes did dress that way. MacLeay's work can provide an accurate guide as to dress of the day, so long as Jock's qualifiers are appropriately applied.

So endeth the sermon. Cheers!