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Highland dress is thetraditional, regional dress of the Highlands and Isles ofScotland. It is often characterised bytartan (plaid in North America). Specific designs of shirt, jacket,bodice and headwear may also be worn. On rare occasions with clan badges and other devices indicating family and heritage.
Men's Highland dress typically includes akilt ortrews. Although this may consist of clan tartan, it is more usual for tartans to be chosen for aesthetic reasons. A tartanfull plaid,fly plaid, or shortbelted plaid may also be worn but usually only at very formal events or by the groom at a wedding. There are a number of accessories, which may include but are not limited to: a belt,sporran,sgian-dubh, knee-socks with a cuff known as kilt hose,garters, kilt pins and clan badges.
Women's Highland dress is also based on the clan tartan, either that of her birth clan or, if married, that of her spouse's clan if she so chooses. Traditionally, women and girls do not wear kilts but may wear ankle-length tartanskirts, along with a colour-coordinated blouse and vest. A tartanearasaid,sash ortonnag (smaller shawl) may also be worn, usually pinned with abrooch, sometimes with a clan badge or other family or cultural motif.
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In the modern era, Scottish Highland dress can be worn casually, or worn as formal wear to white tie and black tie occasions, especially atceilidhs and weddings. Just as the black tie dress code has increased in use in England for formal events which historically may have called for white tie, so too is the black tie version of Highland dress increasingly common.
The codification of "proper" Highland dress for formal and semi-formal wear took place during the Victorian era, and these styles have changed little since then (e.g. the Prince Charlie, Sheriffmuir, and regulation jackets have an antique appearance, being based on Victorian military doublets ofHighland regiments). In observing "constraints imposed by supposed rules and regulations governing ... what is perceived as permissible in Highland dress", Scottish historian Hugh Cheape writes (2012) that "uniform styles and conformity in dress conventions have emerged since the late nineteenth century and have been encoded in books and tailors' patterns; strict observance is expected and in some circles has become a touchstone of Scottishness. The perpetuation of such views, relatively recently formed, is a self-assumed role of guardians of Scottish 'ethnicity'."[1] He contrasts this mode of regulated Highland dress with the kilt's contemporary "renaissance as a style item ... even a post-modern trend in kilt-wear instigated with the 1970s and 1980spunk styles; we see the kilt worn with chunky socks, boots, white T-shirt and black jacket".[2]
Regardless of formality level, the basis of all modern men's and women's Highland dress starts with thetartan, either as akilt,trews,arisaid,sash, ortonnag. Tartans in Scotland are registered at theScottish Register of Tartans in Edinburgh, anon-ministerial department and are usually aligned to aclan or branch of a clan; however, tartans can also be registered exclusively for an individual or institution, and many "district" or "national" patterns also exist that have no associations to particular families or organisations.
Historically, weaponry formed a common accessory of men's Highland dress, such as themattucashlass and thedirk. However, due to the UK's knife laws, smallsgian-dubhs and sword shapekilt pins are more commonly seen today.[3]
For men's and women's shoes,dance ghillies are thin, foldableturnshoes, now used mostly for indoor wear andScottish dancing. The sole and uppers cut from one piece of leather, wrapped around the foot from the bottom, laced at the top, and seamed at the heel and toe.Ghillie brogues are thick-soledwelted-rand shoes. In both, the laces are wrapped around and tied firmly above the wearer's ankles so that the shoes do not get pulled off in the mud. The shoes lack tongues so the wearer's feet can dry more quickly in the typically damp Scottish weather.
Highland dress may also be worn as afolk-costume option at events requiringmorning dress. As such, for formal day-wear use it generally consists of:[4][5]
Men:
The traditionalwhite-tie version of Highland dress consists of:
Men:
The semi-formal version of Highland dress consists of:[4][5]
Men:
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Traditionally,black-tie Highland dress comprises:
Men:
In 1618, a poet from London,John Taylor, described the costume of Scottish aristocrats,lairds, and their followers and servants, dressed for hunting atBraemar. In August and September, all classes dressed in the same fashion by custom, as if equals. This includedtartanstockings andjerkins, withgarters of twistedstraw, and a finer plaidmantle round their shoulders. They had knottedhandkerchiefs at their necks and wore bluecaps. Taylor said the tartan was "warm stuff of diverse colours."[9]
Near the end of the seventeenth century,Martin Martin gave a description of traditional women's clothing in theWestern Islands, theearasaid with itsbrooches andbuckles.
"The ancient dress wore by the women, and which is yet wore by some of the vulgar, calledarisad, is a whiteplaid, having a few small stripes of black, blue and red; it reached from the neck to the heels, and was tied before on the breast with a buckle of silver or brass, according to the quality of the person. I have seen some of the former of an hundredmarks value; it was broad as any ordinary pewter plate, the whole curiouslyengraven with various animals etc. There was a lesser buckle which was wore in the middle of the larger, and above twoounces weight; it had in the centre alarge piece of crystal, or some finer stone, and this was set all around with several finer stones of a lesser size. The plaid beingpleated all round, was tied with abelt below the breast; the belt was of leather, and several pieces of silver intermixed with the leather like achain. The lower end of the belt has a piece of plate about eightinches long, and three in breadth, curiously engraven; the end of which was adorned with fine stones, or pieces ofred coral. They woresleeves of scarlet cloth, closed at the end as men'svests, with goldlace round them, having platebuttons with fine stones. The head dress was a finekerchief oflinen strait (tight) about the head, hanging down the back taper-wise; a large lock of hair hangs down their cheeks above their breast, the lower end tied with a knot ofribbands."[10]
According to the English military chaplain Thomas Morer in 1689, Highland men wore plaids about seven or eightyards (6.4 to 7.3 m) long, which covered from the neck to the knees except the right arm. Beneath the plaid they wore awaistcoat or ashirt to the same length as the drape of the plaid. These were "belted plaids." Their stockings were made of the same stuff as the plaid and their shoes were called "brocks" (brogues).Bonnets were blue or "sad" coloured. Morer noted that the fineness of the fabric varied according to the wealth and status of the man.
ScottishLowlanders and Borderers were dressed much like the English, except both men and women also used a plaid as acloak. The Lowland women wrapped their plaids over their heads ashoods,[11] whereas Lowland and Border men wore a checkeredmaud (plaid) wrapped about their upper body.[12] The maud, woven in a pattern known variously asBorder tartan, Falkirk tartan, Shepherd's check, Shepherd's plaid[13] and Galashiels grey, became the identifying feature of Border dress as a result of the garment's mention by fashionable Border Scots such asWalter Scott,James Hogg andHenry Scott Riddell and their wearing of it in public.[14] Together withRobert Burns, they can be seen wearing a maud in portraits, etchings and statues.
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