Scottish skirt, its history and meaning

Scotland is a beautiful country, known for its mountains and plains, beautiful landscapes, folklore traditions. To date, this is one of the few highly developed countries that do not change their traditions with regard to clothing.

Classic skirts of Scotland look very interesting. They are always made of checkered fabric, wrapped in front, have a buckle (row of buttons or a beautiful brooch). Back and sides have folds, front vertical edge can be trimmed with fringe.

The Scottish skirt not only looks interesting, but also very comfortable. Not surprisingly, it was not only not forgotten, but it became popular too.

In the modern world of fashion, national dresses of peoples of different countries are so bizarrely mixed that it is sometimes difficult to determine in which country they originally wore this or that suit. But the Scots have everything else - a Scottish skirt (also called kilt) is still used by them as an element of national dress, that is, it is worn only by men.

Yes, yes, very popular among European women of fashion checkered skirts were originally used by men, and Scottish women did not wear them. This tradition is observed to this day, albeit in a slightly different form.

To begin with, today the Scottish skirt is less common in its native country, if only because tourists coming to Scotland often scoff at men dressed in supposedly women's clothes. Therefore, on the streets of this country, the male population looks quite ordinary - pants or shorts, all "as expected." But on national holidays the Scots can quite give themselves the will and dress up in favorite kilts!

By the way, today the Scottish skirt can be worn not only on a national holiday. Many Scots who have left their home country, use it as an element of their costume, popular kilt and among Scottish intellectuals and government officials.

Such adherence to their national traditions - even despite constant ridicule on the part of the inhabitants of other countries - speaks of considerable perseverance, courage, independence and patriotism.

Well, those people who believe that a man should never wear a skirt, should study the history of the kilt, which perfectly explains the desire of the Scots to wear national clothes.

First of all, it should be said that Scotland is famous for its high humidity due to the huge amount of precipitation. That is, any person who walks on foot risked very quickly wet his feet and everything that is worn on them. That's why wearing pants was impossible for Scots-shepherds, warriors and travelers.

By the way, initially the kilt (later called a large kilt) was not a skirt, but was a large piece of cloth, part of which was to wrap the belt, and the free end toss over the shoulder. The value of the great kilt was very great, because it not only provided maximum freedom of movement, but could also be used as a blanket, and during the bad weather the free end served as a hood.

And only in the 18th century the upper part of the kilt was cut off, as many workers were uncomfortable wearing an extra piece of cloth. So there was a famous Scottish skirt, the name of which changed very little - from a large kilt it turned into a small one.