We are just back from our family gathering in Colorado. We stayed at a hotel in the Highlands Ranch area of Denver, close to Littleton, where Husband’s stepmother lives. As we were getting out of our taxi when we arrived at the hotel I saw an older man in full Scots regalia in the parking lot, including a kilt and bagpipes.
The Colorado Highland Games were held September 26th -27th here, and our hotel was the center of activity for a meeting of the Clan Hay Society. There was a load of older guys in kilts walking around the hotel lobby and eating in the dining room. The dining room had to be closed early on Saturday as the cook became overwhelmed by all the Clan Hay members dining there. We had to order out. We also saw several women in long dresses, fancy bodices, and animal skins around their shoulders.
Sunday and Monday saw the kilted guys again. Many were eating breakfast or just socializing. We even saw Lord Larry Hay, son of the current Scottish chief the Earl of Erroll, in the lobby. He was dressed in a suit. Husband’s sister in law is a Campbell with grandparents who were born in Scotland, and she was quick to introduce herself to Clan Hay members. She acknowledges the Campbells were simply awful people, but none of the Clan Hay members shied away or denounced her as a traitor. (She once had a Scots store clerk in Portland do that. )
The Clan Society members all appeared to be in their 60’s and 70’s. Many had long hair in ponytails. They looked so proud in their kilts and I got the impression they wore those kilts as often as they could. I imagined them going through airport security in their kilts on their way home from the meeting, and wondered what the TSA agents would make of them.
If I were to dress in traditional ethnic costume I suppose it would be Dutch, with Klompen and a pointy lace cap, and full skirt with a close fitting top. I certainly wouldn’t want to walk around all day in the wooden shoes, though.
How did your ancestors dress? What ethnic costume would you wear in public? Ever had to wear a uniform?
Wore a uniform in the Army. Vowed never to wear olive green or a hat again. But I was 20 when I got out. 2 years later, I joined the Army Reserve, and was back in uniform as a weekend warrior. Left that when I was 24, briefly returned to it for a few months when 27, but I haven’t flirted with it since.
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Waitress uniform at Country Kitchen was my first. Then when I moved to Ole Piper Inn, the uniform was a body shirt with ruffled sleeves and a leather-like wrap skirt. This skirt was stiff and stuck out. Once a customer felt the need to check out what was under the skirt and I felt the need to tip the pitcher of beer in his lap. (I was sent to the back room for a couple of hours until he was gone – yes he continued to sit there w/ his bu dies with a sopping wet lap.)
When I started at the bakery I was startled to discover that the men were given traditional white uniforms that were picked up and laundered (cost covered by the bakery) but the women were on their own. This irritated me beyond belief and I complained enough that the owner added me to the white uniform list. None of the other women were interested in this deal. Subsequent bakeries didn’t squawk at all about putting me on the white uniform list.
Smocks at Cayols (natural food store downtown – not sure if any of their locations are still in business – that was my last official uniform, although I suppose the business attire and then casual business attire were uniform in their way!
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Love the part about the beer in his lap.
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If I were to dress in traditional Dutch garb, folks here would probably think I was from Orange City, IA.
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My friend who lives there designed and sewed all the traditional costumes they wear for Tulip Festival. Later today I will try to find a link they have. She is in the video demonstrating what they do with costumes.
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https://orangecityiowa.com/tulip-festival/
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Orange klompen?!!
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Interspersed among white and black klompen. Maybe it is their school colors.
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The lace cap would have flaps that look like wings by the ears.
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Last time I wore a uniform was during my brief tenure in high school marching band. Before that was boy scouts, I suppose.
My younger daughter was a competitive Scottish highland dancer and during those years she competed we visited highland games and festivals here at Macalester College and regional competitions during festivals in Alma, Michigan, Kansas City, Houston, Texas and the national competition in San Diego. She also competed in Scotland but she traveled there with a group and we were not with them.
Dancer’s costumes were proscribed. A proper kilt requires several yards of tartan wool and the many pleats are determined by the tartan, so that pleated the plaid remains unbroken. Finished kilts are costly, even for small girls, and Robin opted to make our daughter’s first one. That was enough of an ordeal that we bought ready-made ones after that.
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Cool that she got to compete in Scotland! Envy…
(A semicolon somewhere in the second paragraph would be appropriate.)
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I’ve worn several ethnic-looking outfits for various folk dance performances, and maybe once an authentic Hungarian costume. I’ve never had the Norwegian, Swedish, or Welsh costumes that would be my heritage.
In high school I worked in a hospital lab, and wore a nurse-type uniform. When teaching kindergarten in the early 70s, we were still required to wear skirts, and it felt like a uniform. I’d wear the long “granny” skirts when I could, as the mini-skirts were a bit problematic with all the bending over.
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The grand parents on maternal and paternal sides lived in 1630rds Dedham, Massachusetts. The all black Puritan dress is a myth. They wore working, middle class clothing.
However, in 1652, one great grandpa, Jonas Fairbanks, was brought to court for violation of sumptuary law for wearing “great boots” that were above his class. Your estate valuation needed to be above a certain level. His was not there yet but showing off as an unmarried 28 years old man would not be unusual.
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Lederhosen probably figured prominently in my family tree. I don’t know of any surviving family pictures that would prove it, though.
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The William Wallace (Braveheart) tartan kilts is an historical inaccuracy. It was around 300 years later that Scottish warriors began wearing that style.
Just last week, I was reading a Civil War history that included a drawing of parade dress uniforms of the 79th New York Infantry, Highlanders. Full kilt regalia for officers and plaid trousers for enlisted. One unnamed captain wore kilts on the early march toward the 1861 Battle of Bull Run but “the kilts were the cause of his drawing upon himself much ridicule, and when we started for the battle-field on that Sunday morning he, also, appeared in ordinary blue uniform.”
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I don’t know how my ancestors dressed. I would guess that they wore clothes suitable for farm work. My grandfather on my dad’s side wore suits and carried a doctor’s leather bag. He was always very dapper. His wife, my grandma, wore hand-knitted sweaters and cotton “shifts.” My grandfather on my mom’s side wore a denim coverall suit with snaps up the front and long sleeves. His wife, my maternal grandma, wore cotton dresses, and a store-bought white sweater with a sweater clip. She always had a handkerchief shoved up one sleeve of the sweater.
I’m not sure how a Prussian woman might have dressed in the 1800s. I’d figure it out, if I had to. I suspect hand-knitted shawls figured prominently. I don’t think my ancestors were wealthy. I read once that Wil-kow-ske meant “Will the Shoemaker,” who had been a French Huguenot who fled to Prussia Germany. I don’t think that’s accurate, but I don’t know.
I wore Girl Scout uniforms, marching band uniforms, choir gowns, costumes for plays, a student nurse uniform, and a nurse’s uniform.
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Rise and Shine, Baboons:
Last uniform: High School Marching Band.
Ancestor wear: I suppose a few kilts, Puritan black, and long skirts. But really, overalls would be the most accurate representation of the Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa farmers they became no matter what ethnicity.
Now I must go mow the lawn. It is really long overdue!
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We did a bit of yard work this afternoon as well… including the grass. Bales are now officially done for the season.
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Mowing took forever. The gras was too long and wet. I am exhausted.
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The ancestral pictures I’ve seen are all respectable suits and dark dresses (church wear) farm wear on those rare occasions when a casual shot was taken.
Prussian folk wear is rather particular (not dirndls and lederhosen) and I’d be surprised to find photos of my ancestors wearing them. Given the history of the area, they seem very determined to be modern.
I’ve worn the uniform of a nurse aide and a flag girl in marching band. Our band director was dead set against flutes, oboes and bassoons in marching band. Also girls who played French horn. I guess those legs had to come from someplace🙄 The stuff we just accepted back then makes my toes curl. And we thought of ourselves as liberated!
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I wore a band uniform (wool) in high school – for concerts and football game marching band. We had a summer marching band uniform for a couple of summers – navy shorts, white shirts, red cummerbund, no hats. And over my career I wore different uniforms – starting with white dress, white nylons or support hose, white shoes (no cap, thankfully). From there I went to white pants with colorful smock type tops and white shoes. Once on the NICU, I started with a white cotton scrub dress, white support hose, white shoes. Then we switched to a synthetic blend blue scrub dress. From there we changed first to green surgical scrubs, later to blue scrubs. It sure felt like working in my pajamas and was very comfortable. Shoes went from white nursing shoes to white tennies to almost any color tennie or clog. During my recent hospital stay I quickly noticed that the nurses still wear scrubs but they are more tailored (as opposed to the baggy, shapeless surgical scrubs) in different colors and with the U of MN logo on them. Sure wish we could have had those 25 years ago!
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Word Press is being really nasty to me now. Won’t let me log in using the email address I have always used. Grrrrr! This is K-Two.
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It now occurs to me that the ethnic costumes we see for something like the dance performances I mentioned had nothing to do with the everyday things people wore to work in – they were for the Festivals! Baboons above have described those quite well…
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My ancestry is German, Czech/Bohemian, and French. I considered getting a dirndl years ago, but the price put me off. And really, where would I wear it? I don’t know much about Bohemian clothing and French styles vary a lot by region. I do own a beret and a mariniere top.
I love kilts and bought one years ago from Pringle of Scotland. I don’t remember which tartan it is.
I wore uniforms in Girl Scouts, from Brownies through Senior scouts. Our troop once had the opportunity to model historic uniforms for a scouting event, which was fun. Later, as a den mother, I once again wore a uniform, at least the shirt and scarf.
In college, I worked a part-time job as a sort-of supply aide/go-fer at St. Mary’s Hospital and wore a white nurse-style uniform
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I know that the assumption is than the farm workers of previous centuries would have worn simple sturdy clothes and no doubt many of them did, but I have often been struck by images of farmers like this one from 1904, presumably in Germany, working in a suit coat:
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Looks like the suit coat is over the overalls. We have pictures of my grandpa fishing in a suit and tie. It looks hot to me.
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my grandfather was a brick layer. he wore a white shirt and bowtie and a stetson open road style hat to work every day. he wore is as his uniform as the job foreman
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