Kilt Accessories - Footwear and Hose

Footwear and Hose

Ghillies, or ghillie brogues, are a modern development of the brogue used by highlanders. They were made with hide punctured with holes to let water out (as well as in) and this helped feet and footwear to dry out more quickly in the wet/damp/ boggy conditions. These shoes are laced through leather tangs and do not have the tongue which covers the bridge of the foot in normal shoes. The high lacing helped prevent the shoe from being sucked off by mud. Though the ghillie brogue is now considered the normal style of Scottish dress footwear, most of the population probably more often wore the buckled shoe.

Members of pipe bands often wear Ghillie brogues, and many other kilt wearers wear the same type of footgear. As always, there is a great variety in style, with many kilt wearers using black dress shoes or casual footwear. Highland dancers wear a much lighter type of footgear specially adapted to the active requirements of the dancer called dancing ghillies.

With the historical great kilt (or belted plaid), a type of medieval bag shoe was worn. This was a shoe made from a single piece of leather which was cut to a pattern and folded up and around the foot, being secured with a length of leather.

Kilt hose are long stockings normally worn knee-high with the upper part of the hose folded back down to create a thicker cuff just below the knee. They are made of wool or Acrylic or some combination thereof and are available in a variety of solid colors so as to match any tartan colour. They can also be found in diced patterns, which are required wear for Highland dancers. The most common colour of hose however, is the cream, or 'off-white' hose, the colour of unbleached wool. Pipers often wear brilliant white 'pipers hose' made of entirely synthetic fibre. Piper hose differs also in that the top of the hose has a 'built-in' cuff with a raised texture. The "Lassie" and "Laddie" characters from WeeSing's Grandpa's Magical Toys wear white hose as part of their fictionalized Scottish costumes.

Garter flashes are elasticated straps worn inside the cuff of the hose to hold them in place. The flashes are short strips of fabric hanging from the garter, mostly matching the tartan or complementary in colour to the kilt fabric.