Jacket question / advice

[gealach]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I meant to say is this:

It is very good that your kilt fits as it should and that you do not use your belt to keep the kilt up!

All a belt should primarily do nowadays is look good. (except when used to hold other stuff, obviously)

[rveaks73]

Well it is holding my Dirk on my left side.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I meant to say is this:

It is very good that your kilt fits as it should and that you do not use your belt to keep the kilt up!

All a belt should primarily do nowadays is look good. (except when used to hold other stuff, obviously)

[gealach]

I didn't spot that.

As I understand you would normally (if at all) wear the dirk on the right (if right handed) and your sword on the left.

It is suspended from your kilt belt which, in this case, would be worn over a doublet because otherwise the dirk wasn't accessible.

[OC Richard]

For those that don't know me, I have hundreds of vintage photos of men in Highland Dress, and have spent countless hours studying old paintings (including The Highlanders Of Scotland) and vintage Highland Dress catalogues.

So, I always look at things with the long view, with "an old eye" one could say.

So when people start wearing something that wasn't worn, or start wearing something differently than it has always been worn, it jumps out to my eye.

Back in the 1930s writers on Highland Dress tended to be prescriptive, things were either "correct" or "incorrect". I tend to be descriptive: things are usually seen, or not usually seen.

So having a belt buckle peeking out from under the front of the waistcoat may or may not be "incorrect" but it wasn't something seen until recently. My theory is that it's Highland Outfitters wanting to sell more stuff.

When worn with a waistcoat, a dirk belt is traditionally worn over the waistcoat, not under it.

BTW wearing of dirks, plaids, crossbelts, and so forth with Civilian Highland Dress fell out of fashion around 100 years ago.

Here's a nicely dress gent of that period. Dressing like this today would be hopelessly outdated, and would be seen as more of a historical costume that modern traditional Highland Dress. (Note the dirk belt over the waistcoat, or "vest" as it was then called in Scotland, and to this day in America.)



Another gent if full civilian Highland Evening dress. Note the jacket is a quite plain one, and once again there's a dirk belt worn over the vest.



One of my favourite photos, showing the extent of weaponry in 19th century Highland Evening Dress



By the 1920s this old look had been swept away and replaced by a simple sleek pared-down look (here seen in 1936). Civilian Highland Evening Dress hasn't changed much since this time, still a Prince Charlie, small pocketlike sealskin Evening Dress sporran, and so forth.