Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 6 on 6/2/2003.

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Behind the kilt

OR EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE KILT … BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK, BY VIVIEN DEVLIN

Traditional Scottish dress has enjoyed a dramatic and colourful history, from its origins as the Highlanders’ home-spun garments to clan battledress, reinvented by the Victorian aristocracy and finally evolving into fashionable menswear today.

The past 20 years have witnessed an extraordinary boom and renewed pride in wearing tartan. The kilt can be dressed up for weddings (around 85 per cent of Scotsmen now marry in a kilt) and formal dinners, or simply be worn with a sweater and boots to rugby matches and for hill-walking. This trend is spreading worldwide as part of a new-found love affair with Scotland, with Americans, Canadians and Australians in particular rekindling their Scottish identity through avid interest in ancestral research.

So why this tartan phenomenon? Deirdre Kinloch Anderson, a director of the renowned eponymous Scottish family firm, feels that this reborn popularity in Highland dress has a direct correlation with the global market place. “The world has shrunk in terms of products being available everywhere. There has been a conscious return to one’s roots to find something individual. The national dress of Scotland is not folklore heritage like Spanish dress or Lederhosen in Austria, but worn regularly as both a practical everyday and elegant outfit for all occasions. “

The ancient origins of today’s kilt are shrouded in the Scottish mists of time, myth and mystery, where factual evidence is scarce, obscure and contradictory. Literature makes little m.....

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By Vivien Devlin

Section : Scottish Clothing

Page number : 59