Ray wrote:You mean the fèileadh beag?
No, that doesn’t mean skirt, nor does sarong or sulu, but they all belong to the same family.
To take gender/sex out of this, Wikipedia describes a skirt thus:
“A skirt is the lower part of a dress or gown, covering the person from the waist downwards, or a separate outer garment serving this purpose.
The hemline of skirts can vary from micro to floor-length and can vary according to cultural conceptions of modesty and aesthetics as well as the wearer's personal taste, which can be influenced by such factors as fashion and social context. Most skirts are self-standing garments, but some skirt-looking panels may be part of another garment such as leggings, shorts, and swimsuits.
In modern times skirts are typically worn by women with some exceptions such as the izaar which is worn by Muslim cultures and the kilt which is a traditional men's garment in Scotland and Ireland and sometimes England. Fashion designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, Kenzo and Marc Jacobs have shown men's skirts. Transgressing social codes, Gaultier frequently introduces the skirt into his men's wear collections as a means of injecting novelty into male attire, most famously the sarong seen on David Beckham.”
So there you are. A kilt is, according to the globally policed Wikipedia, a skirt - but one worn by men.
Now, how have we gone from fèileadh beag to skirt? Easy. The passage of centuries. This is une bonne chose, n’est ce que pas? There’s Wiki saying “ this is a skirt - but it’s a MAN’s skirt”. No ambiguity.
Scottish historical research publications will be undoubtedly useful - in referring to history. This is now. This is the 21st Century ( bye, 21st Century Kilts’ err, kilts are awesome garments. I have two. One was £1,200*. Worth every penny. Not tartan, mind). I’d ignore NATO definitions. Useful in the military; less so in general life. OC IC MT is well known in the military (yes, I’m ex military) but less so in reality!
The long and short of this (24 inches, I hear you cry!) is that kilts have evolved. Football fans wear nylon rip-offs; new “tartans” proliferate ( I love the name of the “thistle dubh”!), contemporary kilts lose the tartan entirely - yet they remain kilts. Upper or lower case? It doesn’t matter. We should celebrate the adoption of the garment in all its forms - to open up the door to men discovering the joy of an unbifurcated garment. For men. Also known as a type of skirt.
The Kilt will always be a defining subset of skirt. It’s culturally strong enough to stand as a branch of the skirted world. Ironically, a branch suggests bifurcation, and that’s the last thing any of us want!
Slainté
Ray
(* including waistcoat and jacket, excluding all other accessories)
Thank you Ray for helping to clear the fog . I do not consider that Wikipedia is a sufficiently accurate scource of information to suggest that your
response is historically or academically correct....If you wish to expect me to believe the validity of your response I would expect you to make reference
to the works of two Scottish Historians whose references concur.
Any gentleman who wishes to wear the Traditional Scottish Kilt with pride would not be daft enough to suggest that he is wearing a skirt .
The issue we are debating is how The Fieleadh Beag came to be known as a skirt. It is very demeaning of you, as ex Military Personel to expect me to
believe the garbage pumped out of the internet.
Please remember that in my book military staff are not trained to an acceptable civilian standard , the military are trained to a standard which
The Military consider acceptable......Please may I remind you that I was civilian trained by a government contractor and later worked for an organisation
who used the Military as their servants....We always attempted to avoid working directly with Military Personel .
One of my interesting experiences was to sit in an old officers mess with a retired N.C.O. who trained the Raw Recruits in a Highland Regiment how to wear
their Kilts. One windy day he took his troop to a training room on the windward side of this Old Scottish Castle . On the way all their Kilts blew up around their ears.
Fortunately I passed my Kilt wearing inspection with this elderly Kilt wearing gentleman as I was not wearing a skirt.....L.O.L.