FEELING OUT OF KILTER
Lamenting a distinct lack of tartan-clad Scots at recent events, Malcolm Innes wonders why the nation has seemingly fallen out of love with the traditional Scottish kilt
Malcolm Innes ponders why the kilt has dropped off the radar
At the recent Game Fair at Scone I was saddened to see that I was one of the few stall-holders or visitors to wear a kilt. Indeed, it is noticeable and sad to see how rarely my fellow Scotsmen wear the kilt these days compared to even just a few years ago.
I’m at a loss to understand why this should be – perhaps it’s the dreaded Caledonian cringe – but it’s a trend that is becoming more pronounced. On my last visit to the Skye Gathering, only two people wore the kilt, apart from the competing pipers – and even one of those changed into his jeans before collecting his medal. It was as though he saw the kilt as a bit of fancy dress, not everyday clothing as it was designed to be.
Similarly, the Black Watch (three Scots), who are Scotland’s senior Highland regiment, hold a cocktail party each year at Balhousie Castle, yet you’d be lucky to see more than a couple of kilts on parade.
The kilt is recognised as the finest and most recognisable national dress in the world, yet our reluctance to wear it seems to have become endemic. Perhaps we should have a National Day, as the Norwegians do each year on 17 May, when literally everyone dresses up in national costume.
I can understand the argument that kilts are expensive items of clothing for everyday wear, as they regularly cost over £300 for the 8-9 metres of worsted tartan cloth required but, if looked after, a kilt can last you a lifetime. My kilt, built for me by the venerable outfitters Kinloch Anderson in 1961, is almost 60 years old and is still as good as new (although the straps
have had to be let out more than once or twice)! And think of the money saved by not having to wear underpants or repair trouser knees.
The kilt is the uniform of choice for many Scots at formal occasions – such as parades, weddings and funerals – not to mention football and rugby matches – but it should be so much more than that. There is no reason why it shouldn’t be worn as part of everyday life, as it commonly was for much of my life. Nothing can be worse than being made to wear the dreadful outfits issued by hire-shops, frequently consisting of improvised tartan, a plaid, buttonhole and the dreaded white hose.
I accept that I am a little biased on this subject given that I am a piper, an ex-Black Watch TA soldier and a former president of the Highland Society of London in the 1990s. The society fought hard for 37 years to get the kilt restored in 1782, after it was prescribed following Culloden, yet it does not occur to most of my countrymen to wear it.
The kilt, of course, was an invention of Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels
and Ronald Robert McIan’s paintings of the clans, before that the clansmen wore plaids of patterned cloth, not tartan. Thankfully, we have conveniently forgotten that when King George IV visited Edinburgh draped in Royal Stuart tartan, he also wore pink tights.
Above all, a kilt is comfortable to wear, and made of natural materials here in Scotland. It is not just a fancy dress – and, let’s face it, it appeals to the ladies more than a drab suit. With the possible exception of active children or hammer-throwers at Highland Games, nothing should ever be worn underneath the kilt. I remember one young officer at TA camp who was spotted wearing white underpants and, when he refused to remove them, had the job done for him.
I have proof of my own compliance with the rules on this front. As a clerk at Robert Fleming in the City in 1974, I was told to take a group from Eton Manor Boys Club in the East End of London on an ‘educational and industrial tour of Scotland’. We visited Monktonhall
Coal Mine outside Edinburgh, the Black & White Whisky Distillery in Glasgow, and the shipyards in Govan, before heading off to Glencoe where the boys actually skied for the first time (for many of them it was also the first time they ever saw snow). That evening at the King’s House Hotel I was wearing my kilt and noticed that one particularly spirited boy from the far end of the table had disappeared. ‘Where’s David?’ I asked, whereupon they all joined in, shouting ‘where’s Dave?’ At that moment he reappeared from under the table, having crawled down to my end, and announced: ‘Yeah, it’s true!’
Apart from owning your own kilt, the other rule should be to be relaxed about who gets to wear the kilt, and not to be stuffy about which tartan they wear. One of my favourite stories comes from a friend who was in a kilt shop in Edinburgh when an American arrived and said: ‘Ma name’s Dunlop, can you tell me what tartan I’m entitled to wear?’ The shopkeeper said he would look it up and came back five minutes later and said: ‘Aye, ye’re allowed tae wear the McIntyre tartan,’ to which the confused American asked why. ‘Because, sir,’ said the shopkeeper portentously, ‘because Dunlops have been macking tyres for years.’
But, joking aside, where does this decline in the wearing of the kilt come from? Is it symptomatic of our national loss of self-confidence, and if so, why? The Scots-American diaspora have no such bashfulness on this subject, and seem proud to wear the plaid. As one of them said, ‘If you can think of any circumstances in which you would be embarrassed to wear the kilt, then you should not wear it under any circumstances.’
“It is sad to see how rarely my fellow Scotsmen wear the kilt these days