On top of this, most Americans don't really get the social meaning of kilts
here.  There are, as I see it, three main ways the things are worn:

- very casually with none of the fancy trimmings, either just with a plain
  leather sporran or maybe a nylon bum-bag, and usually a sweater, hiking
  socks and Doc Martens.  Some people use this as genuine work clothing (for
  forestry, etc) but it's also often adopted as an urban image.  Goes with an
  up-yours working-class identity and a sticker on your chest opposing water
  privatization.  The tartan is likely to be army surplus Black Watch.

- the whole bit with the black jacket, tasselled sporran and topaz-handled
  knife in your sock, as worn to a wedding or a graduation party.  A lot of
  middle-class Scots have done this but they'll usually hire the gear for the
  occasion.

- something in between with the topaz-handled knife but a tweed jacket, as
  daily clothing rather than for special occasions.  This can mean one of
  two things: upper-class Tory bampot(*) or right-wing nationalist bampot(*).
  The Scottish aristocracy likes to ponce around in this gear.  This tends
  to be what Americans get sold on, since publications aimed at the Scottish
  diaspora love to promote an image of Scotland as a fantasy-novel society
  where commoners and aristocracy live in an idyll of social peace.  In fact
  an American adopting this dress code is signifying alignment with a class
  the great majority of Scots have regarded with loathing and disgust ever
  since the Highland Clearances.  Even the far-right element in the Scottish
  National Party that goes for this image and its associated cultural politics
  is minute; the SNP members campaigning with their IT'S SCOTLAND'S WATER
  banner on Saturday mornings where I live in the East End of Glasgow would
  never dream of wearing kilts, they know how it would alienate people.  I've
  literally never seen anyone in a kilt on the street within a mile of my
  flat in the six or seven years I've lived there.

(*) "bampot", or "bam" for short, means something like
    "self-important obsessionally deluded fruitcake".

[ followups to soc.culture.celtic ]

--
-- Jack Campin -- Room 1.36, Department of Computing & Electrical Engineering,
   Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS
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