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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3342 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 29, 2024

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When was the last time the last Scottish people wore kilts unselfconsciously or unironically?

Scotsmen wear kilts now, unselfconsciously and unironically. There are three main cases where they are worn:

  1. As formal dress, usually with black tie accompaniments like bow ties. Think weddings, graduations, proms, formal birthday parties.
  2. For things related to Scottish heritage, i.e. Burns Night, Hogmanay (New Year's), ceilidhs (group folk dancing)
  3. For sport, usually with thick football/rugby socks and boots, plus team jerseys

Now of course, that doesn't mean that Scotsmen wear them every day. The only guys who do that are really into their Scottish nationalism, and usually members of the underclass or hippies. I suppose because they lack status in regular society, they attach themselves to their national identity more strongly. Typically they wear something like this.

In the lowlands, kilts were never everyday dress. They were highland dress that was only adopted by lowlanders after the military threat from the highland was vanquished and the kilt was safe to become an expression of Scottish identity more broadly.

See to me all those cases, dress codes and nationalists, are self consciously wearing it, in direct opposition to the normal clothes they typically wear or understand as normal clothing. It seems to me like it's been a while since a scotsman put on a kilt without thinking about the English he was unlike by doing so.

See to me all those cases, dress codes and nationalists, are self consciously wearing it, in direct opposition to the normal clothes they typically wear or understand as normal clothing.

I don’t know much about Scotland but I think you’re underestimating how normal nationalist and other identity based clothing can be. When someone puts on a Celtic or Rangers top in a city where you can get beaten up for walking down the wrong street in the wrong colours he’s making a statement, but football jerseys are still everyday clothing and he might put that top on once or twice a week without thinking much about it (given that it’s also normal for him not to walk down the wrong streets).

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