Trews - Modern Trews and Military Trews

Modern Trews and Military Trews

Modern trews are more like trousers with the fabric cut on the straight grain but without a side seam, and are often high-waisted, usually to be worn with a short jacket, as an alternative to the kilt.

Colonel Sir John Sinclair of the Caithness, proved to his own satisfaction that "the truis" was an older dress than kilts.

Until the establishment of the Royal Regiment of Scotland in 2006, military trews were usually worn by members of the lowland Scottish regiments as part of their No 1, mess and full dress uniforms. Members of highland Scottish regiments were usually authorized to wear kilts with these orders of dress. However, all Highland regiments, in more recent times, wore trews with less formal orders of barracks and training dress. They were also part of the uniform of the composite regiment known as The Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons) formed in 1994. The new Royal Regiment of Scotland comprises all the former Scottish infantry line infantry regiments and continues to wear trews in certain limited orders of dress.

Historically trews were part of the Highland cultural tradition, not Lowland. As such, when Lowland regiments became the first of the Scottish regiments to be formed in the mid-1660s to late 1680s, the Lowland soldiers wore standard British military uniform and had no desire to wear tartan items and march to the bagpipes, which they considered to be part of a foreign and savage culture. From these early beginnings up to 1881, the famous Lowland regiments (1st, 21st, 25th, 26th, 70th, 90th, 94th and 99th) wore standard British uniform.

Meanwhile, from 1739 onward, the Highland regiments which were raised insisted on the familiarity of their native dress and Great Highland war-pipes, albeit in a modified form to suit a British military identity, as part of their cultural identity. They wore the complex belted plaid and latterly, to encourage recruits unfamiliar with such garb, they adopted the simpler kilt. However, trews were increasingly worn as off-duty dress and even campaign dress from the late 18th Century. Highland regiments stationed in hot or unhealthy surroundings often took to wearing simple white cotton trousers or tartan trews. For example, the 91st Highland Regt of Foot wore trews during the Walcheren campaign of 1809 and more famously, the 93rd Highland Regiment of Foot wore trews and round unfeathered Highland bonnets during the war of 1812–1815 against the USA, when taking part in the British campaign to capture New Orleans in January 1815 and during the disastrous Battle of Chalmette Plain itself (lithographs of the battle wrongly depict them wearing kilts).

In 1822, following King George IV's successful first visit to Scotland including a separate coronation, he ordered the resumption of Highland dress and traditions for one de-kilted regiment. The regiment chosen was the most senior of the de-kilted regiments, the 72nd. They adopted the Highland feather bonnet, the Highland version of the red coatee, but in lieu of kilts, they were ordered to wear trews for all duties. The tartan chosen was a new form of red or Royal Stewart called Prince Charles Edward Stuart, reflecting the new romantic fashion for all things Jacobite.

Due to the military use of trews by the Lowland regiments, the perception of trews as Lowland dress spilled over into civilian wear, so that for many years, trews began to be viewed as Lowland dress, rather than the Highland kilt. However, in recent years, a resurgence in Highland history and traditions has seen trews re-enter the Highland wardrobe, whilst interested Lowlanders have now encompassed these traditions within a wider Scottish template.