Well plaid!

 

A young golfer of our acquaintance turns 21 in a couple of weeks.

                                                  The Royal Stewart.

And he has asked for a kilt! A handmade, made to measure traditional kilt. Not a tartan skirt, not a punk kilt, not trews but a traditional proper kilt made from eight yards of pure wool; no doubt he shall get the Stewart tartan, one of the most famous tartans. The dress Stewart is immediately recognisable thanks to Vivienne Westwood but the hunting Stewart is a rather nice muted tartan - supposedly  coloured as it blends with heather and the bracken while its wearer goes out to murder wildlife.

                                         

                                                         The everyday Stewart

I think most of this is a load of nonsense invented by Victorians who had nothing better to do with their time. Clan tartans are all a pretty recent innovation.

The kilt, as such, may also be quite recent, the sort that has permanently stitched pleats at the back, a wrap over flap at the front, kept in place by four adjustable leather straps. They are incredibly expensive so one lasts a lifetime- hence the adjustable buckles. The wrap over flap is kept fixed by a fancy pin worn on the lower left side.

                                          

                                                                                Not a kilt

Over the kilt, generally not attached to the kilt is a belt for the sporran- either a chain or a leather belt, on which hangs the ‘wee badger handbag’ as Billy Connolly used to call it. The chain should fit on the waist at the back and sweep down. When Alan was in the pipe band, as a snare drummer, the drum was to the right and the sporran was to the left.

                                                     

                                                                     ????????

Nowadays, there is a whole spectrum of dress; the dress kilt is a jacket (Prince Charlie), a tartan tie, dress socks with side ties and a sgian-dubh down the side of one sock.  The other end is the more Jacobite style with a blouse type of skirt, with a lace neck opening, to show gingers hairs on the chest.

The real thing was of course, the plaid; a long piece of material 9 yards long, plain or dyed with the colours of the local vegetation.

Alan reports that the kilts are not comfortable to wear.  Terrific nonsense when one needs to empty ones bladder, extremely hot if worn in doors with central heating, the traditional wool socks are very itchy.  Wallet kept in sporran, car keys and credit cards. It’s a bit of a palaver to put it on. The kilt gave little protection to the leg where the drum rested, and when the pipe band was on a long march, the snare drummer’s thigh always got covered in bruises. To make up for this, they always ended the march in the beer tent. They were a champion pipe band in those days and proudly wore the McGregor   tartan as their uniform. I think because it’s dark and doesn’t show the beer stains. I think one of the MIE bloggers is entitled to wear the McGregor tartan.

 And as a post script, you do know that the McGregors’ were a bunch of sheep stealing outlaws, never to be trusted but maybe they do have good DNA for writing crime fiction. My clan shield has a dagger on one side, and a quill on the other.

While googling for examples of some of the tartans I’ve noticed that the words tartan and plaid are interchangeable, and they shouldn’t be.  The tartan is a pattern, plaid really means blanket... which were often tartan strips of cloth about 9 yards long and as broad as the loom it was made on.

 And there are as many ways of wearing it as stars in the sky.

The belted plaid is the most common. Gather two thirds of the material around your waist keeps it in place with a huge leather belt and fling the remaining fabric over your shoulder. If cold (a probability) it then comes as a shawl.  At night, the whole thing becomes a duvet. A wee dram and some oatcakes from your sporran and you are fine for a night out on the hills watching your sheep, and keeping an eye out for a McGregor.

Before the 1500s, this was really the common wear for anybody wandering around through heather and, don’t even think about it guys, high thistles.  The bit of cloth hanging over your shoulder was good for carrying things, lambs, other folk’s sheep, (dead English) and keeping your hands free. If your plaid was coloured, you had money.

                                           

                                                             A variation on the Stewart

You can see how the permanent stitching of the pleated gatherings of fabric at the back has brought about the modern kilt.

I do know somebody who does tourist trips to the locations of outlander and as part of this madness he  strips off ( not sure how far),  places a belt on the ground, lies the full plaid on top of it then lies down in the middle. He pleats the central section, pulls the belt round him, and jumps to his feet, throws the excess material over his shoulder and hey presto…. The belted plaid.

This amuses tourists.

Seemingly.

                                   

                                              The hunting Stewart...

There is also a fly plaid, just the over shoulder bit, usually worn by the groom at weddings and serves no purpose what so ever, except looking good on the twirly bits of Scottish dancing. It crosses the heart at the front and it then is flung over the left shoulder, often kept in place by the epaulets of a Prince Charlie jacket (so called because he never wore anything like that). The fly plaid is fixed by a round, generally silver brooch.

There are all kinds of modern variations on the theme but because of him who used to play in the pipe band, I will mention the most flamboyant of them all; the Piper’s Plaid. It has so much going on, anywhere else it would look ridiculous, esp. in the pub later, but the  full regalia,  the plaid flowing like superman’s cape, right down to the top of the sock on the opposite side,  with the sway and the swagger of the pleats, it looks  might fine.

Alan of course, wore the Drummer's Plaid, it’s a bit shorter as they need free movement of their arms, only about 2.5 yards of fabric and it is allowed (by who one askes?) to be fixed through the front of the jacket and pulled into a pleat where it’s fixed to an internal button, for obvious reasons of not getting in the way. And we do need to recall that these last two were military, the lone piper and the lone drummer.

There is more than one story about the enemy surrendering just to shut then up.

Here's wee video of the pipe ban Alan used to play for. You can see it's hot, no jackets!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFyyHMAl_CA