Talk:Highland dress

Women's dress
There's very little detail on female dress, and no pictures whatsoever. Pretty serious gap if you ask me. 82.5.34.152 (talk) 13:55, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * This article seems to be focused on Highland Dress as a specific form of men's wear, not the clothing of highlanders. I would similarly expect little discussion of women's dress in an article about tuxedos or men's dress in evening gowns. Dress tartans are more modern creation, like the pant-suit, and are rarely seen outside of highland dance performances. I have never seen one at a ceilidh or wedding and would imagine any woman wearing one to get some amused looks and rather lewd questions about her pants. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Throwawaygull (talk • contribs) 16:24, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Montrose doublet
I added a waistcoat is not worn with a Montrose doublet either. I can't find a source, but as it is a high-collared double-breasted jacket that fastens up to the collar. Even if one wanted to wear a waistcoat, it could not be seen. I also cannot find a Montrose waistcoat for sale anywhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Throwawaygull (talk • contribs) 16:24, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
 * If you can't find a source, don't add stuff to the article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:46, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

G[h]illie
I have edited the entry to show the "correct" spelling of gillie. While gillie itself is in effect an Anglicised spelling, the introduction of the "h" to read "ghillie" was an affectation to make the word appear "more" Gaelic. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.2.92.131 (talk • contribs)
 * Not really. the "h" is actually there to stop people pronouncing it as "jillie". I would put it back in if I were you. -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:59, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The predominant spelling in sources for this term (especially in reference to the footwear) is ghillie.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Highland v. Lowland
"Highland Dress" now redirects to this article. Historically, that's bullshit, if you'll allow me to speak plainly. Whereas Lowlanders wore clothing common to the English, Highlanders wore clothing common to Gaels, including themselves and the Irish. This should be reflected by this article, at least with a section divide. Neither one is any more "Scottish" than the other, so there's no precedent for one to be favoured by the article. Canæn 01:48, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I think "Highland dress" is a much better title for this article than "Scottish apparel". Can we reach a consnsus to change the name? - PKM (talk) 19:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yep. Never heard the phrase "Scottish apparel" before. "Highland dress" is a far more common name for it. -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:59, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * This page should definitely be renamed Scottish Highland Dress.80.171.194.164 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added on 19:28, 24 February 2009 (UTC).


 * Scots Highland attire or Scots Highland dress are the correct terms.Msml (talk) 12:29, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * For this reason I added "Highlands and Isles" of Scotland in defining "highland dress". Highland dress is certainly not THE traditional dress of Scotland.  Following on, I have expanded the section of Lowland and Border dress with links to the page on the Border maud (plaid), referenced, but without much in detail. Dougalbnz (talk) 12:22, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

This article has for a long time now been at Highland dress, and is not pretending to be a "Scottish apparel" article. However, Scottish apparel and Scottish dress still redirect here, which is potentially misleading. There is no Fashion in Scotland, Fashion of Scotland, or Scottish fashion article (though this is a viable topic), nor is there a Scottish Lowland dress or Lowland dress (nor probably should there be, since it has always been pretty much the same as contemporary English dress, which in turn was not markedly different from continental Western European dress). There thus does not appear to be anything to build up a disambiguation page about. If people remain concerned about these redirects, they should nominate them for deletion at WP:RFD. There's nothing further to be done about them, so using this talk page for it is kind of a waste of time. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move
Scottish dress → Highland dress — Somewhat belatedly, per the discussion above move over existing redirect. Mutt Lunker (talk) 22:01, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. Highland dress is what it actually is. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:23, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

✅, with no objections if someone wants to add 'Scottish' on the front. -- zzuuzz (talk) 19:01, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Arisaid
There's no Wiki article for Arisaid. I discovered this while looking for something else, and since I'm far from a costume expert I'm not comfortable making the article myself, but there ought to be at least a stub-class article on it. CouldOughta (talk) 03:52, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The Arisaid article was created in 2016.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:27, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Seals of kings
That cite is in gaelic and completely dubious, as it contradicts all other information on kilts in wikipedia. Is there an image of these seals? 209.131.62.113 (talk) 18:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Here's the seal of Alexander I-- shows him wearing a perfectly ordinary tunic, and the reverse shows him in armour. Wikipedia article including steel-engraved images of the same seal.
 * Here's David I, again, wearing an unremarkable tunic and on the reverse, in armour. Also, steel engravings at Wikimedia Commons
 * And this one's Malcolm IV (not a great image, I'm afraid), and on the reverse, again, in armour. I'm afraid I couldn't find a better image of this one.
 * So, no kilts on those guys. Beastiepaws (talk) 07:50, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Kilty-police
The recent additions regarding formal wear are ludicrously prescriptive and though they may well reflect the cited text it seems to be an expression of the views of the most hardline faction of the Highland-Dress-Police. Who legislates for these so called rules? If somebody reckons they do, that could be cited but lists of allowed and not-allowed items to this level of detail seem pretty daft or should, at best, be put in the context that some only hold views that certain rules must be followed. The idea that any of this is truly traditional is also dubious, if meant to reflect usage in the period when highland dress was every-day wear. It's possibly sort-of-traditional for post revival, 19th century onwards highland dress I guess. Mutt Lunker (talk) 14:10, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Glen Larson 05 Dec 12 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:33, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * There is always the kilt police out and about! I made a few edits to white tie, which may help reflect the more broad nature of highnald white tie. There is a great picture of the royals at Windsor which shows the breath of highland white, with both royals wearing a black bow tie, but I need to figure out how to post it with the copyright information. Perhaps a note at the start of the section on the breath of acceptable highland formal regalia is needed to keep the kilt police a bay. I think this section, and the detail in needed to control the kilt police, as well...
 * In short, formal and semi-formal dress are prescriptive by their entire nature, and there are numerous publications prescribing the particulars of Highland dress, going back to the Victorian era, and still being published today (though this weak article is citing few of them), just as there are prescriptive materials written about white-tie and black-tie dress in other contexts (tuxedos, bow-ties, etc., etc.). If you're expecting an article on how to "spice up" your kilt outfit with punk, metal, grunge, hip-hop, etc., fashion cues (or "how to dress in 1690s Highlander cosplay" for that matter) you're not going to find that here, because it's generally not something subject to published reliable sources. All that said, I plan to totally overhaul this article with a complete history section and some material, where I can find good sourcing for it, on application of elements of Highland dress (most obviously the kilt) to contemporary fashion, and have already started by including a quote from historian Hugh Cheape that is a bit critical of what you call the "kilty-police". So, yes, this is a step toward "put in the context that some only hold views that certain rules must be followed". This will take a while, as I'm in mid-overhaul of the Tartan article, and have "sourced the hell out of it" to such an extent that the subject now needs to be split up into about 6 articles. So, I have a lot of work to do before taking on the general Highland dress article. (And I'm sure it'll be me doing the work, as WikiProject Scotland and WikiProject Scottish Clans are totally moribund; no one has responded to a single thing I've posted there in over two months.)

Additional sources

 * – If that URL goes dead, here's another. Beware the smaller version from Lang Syne Press; it is abridged garbage.
 * – Updated edition of Edwardian classic.
 * – includes a chapter on wearing Highland dress. This may be a compressed version of this, but I'm not sure (I have the following one on order, so I'll find out soon enough):
 * The URL goes to the original 2006 e-book; I have no idea if the paper book (issued in various printings or editions in 2009, 2012, and 2018) differs from it. Fiddes is the founder of Scotweb, which became Clan.com, which now owns D.C. Dalgliesh, one of the leading tartan manufacturers. He's also on the board of the Scottish Tartans Authority.
 * – Frankly, this one looks like a weak tertiary-source summary of the history of Highland dress, with little on current practice.
 * Has Highland-dress material at pp. 195, 201–211.
 * – Has sections on female and male dress, plus a glossary, across the indicated page numbers.
 * – Generally concerned with the tailoring, but covers both kilt and jackets, so may have something of interest.
 * – Mostly a history of the company (probably the longest-continually-operating Highland dress clothier), but seems to have several chapters of relevance.
 * Has Highland-dress material at pp. 195, 201–211.
 * – Has sections on female and male dress, plus a glossary, across the indicated page numbers.
 * – Generally concerned with the tailoring, but covers both kilt and jackets, so may have something of interest.
 * – Mostly a history of the company (probably the longest-continually-operating Highland dress clothier), but seems to have several chapters of relevance.
 * – Mostly a history of the company (probably the longest-continually-operating Highland dress clothier), but seems to have several chapters of relevance.

There are others from the early 20th century, but this is enough to work with.

This may be about wearing Highland dress, or it may be a highly compressed summary of the history of Highland dress; it's just a 62-page booklet, and I don't have it. I found it cheap, so I ordered a copy.

Something else worth tracking down for this and related articles (but now out of print and a collector's item; only copy I could find was over US$400!): Similar:

This might also be of peripheral interest; it purports to dig up a lot of a Highland historical matter from native Gaelic sources, instead of the usually rather prejudicial English writings of the period we're used to seeing cited all the time (Martin Martin, Daniel Defoe, etc.). But, no guarantee is has anything at all on Highland dress in it. Actually, there are three successive books by this author, and it's not clear how much overlap there is in content and source material:
 * – 148 pages (seems to be the more introductory/casual volume).
 * – 424 pages. I contacted the author, and he tells me this began as a revision of the work below, but quickly came to surpass it.
 * – 320 pages.

Some others that probably go into Highland dress history:
 * – Probably has some material on historical Highland dress.
 * – Probably has some material on historical Highland dress.
 * – Probably has some material on historical Highland dress.
 * – Probably has some material on historical Highland dress.
 * – Probably has some material on historical Highland dress.

More:
 * – "These paintings feature detailed description of Highland costume, Highland custom and Highland country – and, in so doing, provide invaluable insights into the rapidly evolving, increasingly romanticized image of the Highlands in the later eighteenth century. They offer distinct views into the changing connotations of tartan and Highland custom in the decades following the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, the place of these cultural nationalist signs within the ‘concentric loyalties’ of Scots in this period and the relationship between Highlandism and values associated with the Union."

Historical primary sources:
 * – There are 3 more volumes, but I don't know if they have anything pertient in them.
 * – Downloading the PDF version (choose "Colour composite text file (pdf)") takes several minutes, as it is assembled on-the-fly from page images in the site's database. Should that site go dead, an inferior copy is available here.
 * – Ditto.
 * – Actually an important source, since it is likely what spurred the HSoL to canvass clan chiefs for clan tartans (and plant badges, etc.) by 1815.

Various online vendors provided their own "how to wear it" guides, and they are potentially of some use, with caution, as they are primary sources and geared toward selling (though, on the other hand, they probably do qualify as subject-matter experts when it come to contemporary use/style). I won't link-farm those here.

See also:
 * Talk:Scottish diaspora, Talk:Highland dance, Talk:Highland games/Archives/2023 1, Talk:Tartan

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:26, 22 July 2023 (UTC); rev'd. 11:19, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Improvements and comments
I cleaned up the article and made major contributions to the layout because when I first saw it I was horrified. This article lacks a lot of detail and it requires a considerable amount of work. I tried my best to at least organize it so that it's more pleasing to the reader but more needs to be done. I repositioned images and created galleries. I have a few comments.

1. There is a section on day wear dress and another for the semi-formal dress. If that's the case what is considered formal?

2. If white and off-white hose should be avoided with day and semi-formal dresses can white hoses be worn with the formal dress?

3. The image of David McLeod shows a "formal black tie Highland regalia". Is that considered a formal dress?

4. The black and white tie sections cannot be sections on their own. They must be subsections of a specific dress, either formal or informal. On their own they don't make sense.

5. The Highland dress for women is basically inexistent.

6. Images of accessories such as sporran and sgian-dubh are missing. They really should be added.

7. Aside for better descriptions and solid sources this article needs some good images to visually show what is informal and formal. Also, it needs images of tartan setts since those are the essence of the Highland dress.

8. A history section should be added to explain how the Highland dress started, outlining the evolution from the ancient to the modern dress.

9. Can a tie be used with any form of the Highland dress or the bowtie is the norm?

ICE77 (talk) 07:50, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

The main problem with highland dress is that there are few good references with many 'others' using this article as a main source. I'll provide answers as the best I can but don't have references other than those in the article. Forums on xmarksthescot.com have long discussion on highland dress. As well, another problem is that good photos have copyright issues...Glenlarson (talk) 18:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/32/0d/87/320d87de5f3b18aee9cdb914d3777c15--prince-andrew-prince-william.jpg
 * I added quite a few references above, and will be using them when I get around to overhauling this article. "I didn't find a source in a few minutes with Google" doesn't mean there are no sources. For many topics, doing good research requires buying books (or getting them via inter-library loan). Discussions of random yahoos on websites like XMarksTheScot are not sources.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

1. There is a section on day wear dress and another for the semi-formal dress. If that's the case what is considered formal?

Formal seams to be added to the day wear, perhaps to differentiate from casual day wear. Semi-formal dress comes from the Scottish Tartan Authority reference. It seams to have been developed to give guidance for those that receive invitations to weddings that say semi formal. Highland dress only had two forms of dress initially, day and evening. A lot is done to fit highland dress into the various terms. Glenlarson (talk) 18:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That's not correct. Victorian dress codes were considerably more complicated than just two styles (and Highland dress is thoroughly Victorian, at its more formal registers). Any of the above sources already cover this. It is not helpful here to make pronouncements about what "is" when you have not read the source material.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

2. If white and off-white hose should be avoided with day and semi-formal dresses can white hoses be worn with the formal dress?

Basically, no, pure white hose should be avoided in all forms of dress; however, there are lots of photos of good Scots wearing white hose. White hose is popular with rental companies because of ease of cleaning. Cream is always a better choise over pure white, but coloured hose is always preferred.Glenlarson (talk) 18:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This is bald-faced personal opinion. Quite-white tartan hose are in considerable demand (e.g. from vendors at Highland games – i.e., they are provably in wide use), and are even part of many pipe bands' uniforms. Personally, I agree they're an eyesore, but the idea that they're "dress-code wrong" is false.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC) Some Highland-ware vendors are against them and against "Jacobite shirts", so we have a source on traditionalism here .  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:33, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

3. The image of David McLeod shows a "formal black tie Highland regalia". Is that considered a formal dress?

Yes, and he wears a Prince Charlie jacket (PC). The PC is usually considered not formal enough jacket for white tie' however, when that style of coat was developed, the PC was initially marked in catalogs worn with a white tie. A black bow tie is usually worn with highland dress for either black tie or whit tie events, although there are areas that wear a white bow tie for those events. Glenlarson (talk) 18:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That's not factual either. [sigh]. White tie events do call for a more formal doublet than a PC, but black bow ties are not worn with the more formal jackets; white ties are, or white jabots (lacy ascots), depending on the doublet. Any of the above-mentioned sources cover this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

4. The black and white tie sections cannot be sections on their own. They must be subsections of a specific dress, either formal or informal. On their own they don't make sense.

Sure, it could be formal evening dress style. Glenlarson (talk) 18:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * No, they are separate dress codes. See the articles Black tie and White tie. If they were the same thing, there would just be one article. I think part of what is going on here is that "formal" to the average middle-class person means "wearing a suit" or maybe, "wearing a tuxedo" once or twice in one's life, like for senior prom, or a night wedding at which formal attire is demanded.  Most people are never exposed to a white-tie event in their lives. Getting knighted any time soon?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

5. The Highland dress for women is basically inexistent.

Yes, unfortunately. Most think of only males in kilts for highland dress. At most events, ladies usually wear the same type of clothing, although there are a few highland ladies dress being now being seen worn.Glenlarson (talk) 18:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * There are various sash styles (a very Victorian invention), of course, and plaids and shawls with a longer history, but women in the Highlands began wearing Lowland/English/Continental clothing styles by the early 18th century (when the arisaid or earasaid stopped being worn, even while Highland men continued to wear the belted plaid and later picked up the small kilt), so this is rather to be expected. There are efforts to revive the arisaid, and to apply tartan to various formality-levels of modern dresses/gowns, but they both may be out-of-scope for this article, unless sources on Highland dress are covering them. The former is basically Tudor–Stuart era cosplay, and the latter is modern haute couture. Unless there's evidence we can rely on that they are being absorbed into Highland dress as we know it, they're probably not something to cover here. (But such evidence may exist; only a generation or so ago, "ghillie shirts" and the peitean were regarded as kind of silly costume stuff, more appropriate for RenFaire, but have become covered in some of the leading Highland dress books and are regularly sold and worn at Highland games events today; styles change, and it's a matter of finding the sourcing.) Since the 1950s, female Highland dancers and Scottish country dancers have worn Aboyne dresses (basically a kilt-skirt fused to a rather decorative waistcoat); I don't honestly know if there's been much wearing of them as other than dancing dress; bears some actual research. This style is based on earlier dancers' wear with separate waistcoats and skirts (ranging from about kilt length to quite long in the Edwardian era – there's a great photo in one of the books from right around the turn of the previous century, and I thought it was Highland Dress, Arms and Ornament by Archibald Campbell (1899), but I seem to be mistaken, so finding it again will be challenging. It may have been Adam Frank's The Clans, Septs, and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands, which I was going through around the same time. Maybe not a big deal, since a Google Images search on "Edwardian Highland dancer", etc. produces good hits). The ancestral style goes back to at least the 1850s (see Millais painting – the relationship to the later Aboyne dress is obvious, as is the influence of Victorian military doublets; we know from other sources that women, especially officers' wives, were adapting Highland regiment styles to civilian female clothing of general British/European styles as early as the late 18th century). And there are many earlier portraits with tartan dresses, skirts, bodices, and of course shoulder plaids, the latter back to c. 1700. , there's enough source material to cover historical womenswear in Highland dress, but precious little that I've found so far on modern options aside from sashes, fly plaids, and dance competition costume. Doesn't mean nothing else will turn up, though. I surprise myself on a near-daily basis in what I'm able to dig up. (For one thing, Internet Archive has a surprising number of copyrighted books from the 1920s to 2000s or so that can be virtually "checked out" for an hour at a time. It's saved me hundreds and hundreds of dollars on book ordering, though just for working on the Tartan article I've already spent probably $300.)

6. Images of accessories such as sporran and sgian-dubh are missing. They really should be added.

Sporran and sgian-dubh have their own pages with photos. Glenlarson (talk) 18:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * We'll still need illustrations here, making it clear what we're talking about, preferrably with items in the context of an entire outfit; just seeing a sgian dubh or whatever by itself isn't very informative of "Highland dress". Fortunately, Commons has a lot more stuff on it these days, and I've been better-organizing it over there, though this is slow-going. It should be possible to find a range of good images to use in this article, though getting clear pictures of every kind of Highland coat/jacket/doublet is probably out of the question for now. May have to write to various vendors and beg them to Creatie Commons-license some pics that they don't need. If worse comes to worst, I could pay an illustrator of Fiver to gin up some line-art drawings of them based on vendor photos. (My own art skills are probably too rusty for it.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

7. Aside for better descriptions and solid sources this article needs some good images to visually show what is informal and formal. Also, it needs images of tartan setts since those are the essence of the Highland dress.

Casual dress would be nice. Tartan has its own page. Glenlarson (talk) 18:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this is not the place to illustrate a bunch of tartans. Any picture of Highland dress will include some tartan, so that is enough.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

8. A history section should be added to explain how the Highland dress started, outlining the evolution from the ancient to the modern dress.

sureGlenlarson (talk) 18:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is going to be a priority when I overhaul this page after I'm done with Tartan (and the splitting of it up into half a dozen more specific articles like "Clan tartans", "Regimental tartans", "History of tartan", "Tartan weaving and design", etc.).  Still a least a month or two of work to do there, at the pace I'm working at. I don't have a multitasking mindset to work on this article also at the same time, other than trivially. Anyway, the lack of historical coverage at this article is a downright embarassment, especially given how long the article has existed.  Other Category:Highland dress articles are also largely crappy, and various ones are missing (though some subjects like kilt hose and kilt pins and so only need exist as sections here, with redirects to them. I'm skeptical we need an entire article on kilt pins).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

9. Can a tie be used with any form of the Highland dress or the bowtie is the norm?

A long tie for day use, and a bow tie for evening is the norm.Glenlarson (talk) 18:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Not really. A bow tie (black or white, or for white-tie a jabot, with a Sheriffmuir doublet, etc.) is the norm for high-formality events, which Victorians called "evening" dress. But there's nothing vaguely wrongheaded about wearing a regular necktie with an appropriate informal jacket for informal evening events, like going to dinner or a play. Highland dress is not in some frozen-in-time world of its own where strict Victorian dress codes still rigidly apply, devoid of contextual connection to the event in question. Actually reading any reliable source on this, like Thompson's, will make this clear.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Glen, if, as you say, you do not have references for the above, your statements are thus original research and must not be used on Wikipedia. Mutt Lunker (talk) 09:28, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I kind of appreciate what Glenlarson has been trying to do here (though he's just wrong on some points), but this is not a forum and such "here's my take" opinions belong at XMarksTheScot or a similar venue. I have the sources to work this article into something encyclopedia-worthy, and it's on my to-do list.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposed inclusion criteria for List of tartans
Please see Talk:List of tartans, a proposal for a three-point list of inclusion criteria. There are at least 7000 tartans and we cannot account for them all in a single article. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:42, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Sheriffmuir doublet
This item forms a hyperlink from an article about the history of the kilt. It is redirected to this page, but there is no mention of it in this article. Either it should be added to this article or the hyperlink should be removed. 190.150.76.116 (talk) 19:16, 27 April 2022 (UTC)