Biographical Details on Boys' Clothing Styles: Gavin Maxwell--Kilts


Figure 1.--Again Gavin's brothers Aymer and Eustice wear identical outfits, sweaters and short trousers, while Gavin wears his kilt. We do not know who chose the children's clothes from day to day or if the boys were allowed to.

Several photographs show Gavin in black and white sheperd's plaid kilts. He states that "We habitually wore kilts of black and white sheperd's plaid." This suggests that all the children wore kilts or at least the three boys. This may have been the case, but it is not confirmed in any of the available photographs. In the photographs, when the two plder boys wear kilts, Gavin wears a smock. When Gavin wears a kilt, the other boys are wearing short trousers. Now this may be just a result of the limited number of photographs, but it may be that the boys only wore kilts when younger. Even when wearing them forplay they always seem to wear their sporans. They seem to have worn wither strapmshoes or sandals with their kilts. One unansered question HBC has is how commonly Scottish boys wore kilts in the eraly 20th century.

Styles

Several photographs show Gavin in black and white sheperd's plaid kilts. Amother picture of the boys in kilts does not show the shepherd'd plaid, but it could hard to make out in the photograph.

Accessories

The children even infornally at home appear tomhave worn their sporans, We do not know of any other Scottish regalia.

Conventions

The images here are of the children in casual dress at home. We do not know what the children wore when they dressed up.

Who

He states that "We habitually wore kilts of black and white sheperd's plaid." This suggests that all the children wore kilts or at least the three boys. This may have been the case, but it is not confirmed in any of the available photographs. In the photographs, when the two plder boys wear kilts, Gavin wears a smock. When Gavin wears a kilt, the other boys are wearing short trousers. Now this may be just a result of the limited number of photographs, but it may be that the boys only wore kilts when younger. Even when wearing them forplay they always seem to wear their sporans.

Selection

We do not know who chose the children's clothes from day to day or if the boys were allowed to. It seems that if the boys were allowed to choose their own clothes that two would have dressed alike, but not the younger boy. It could be that they were not given a large selection. We also do not know if the older boys by this time did not want to wear kilts.

Age

The boys look to be about 6-8 years old here.

Shoes and Socks

The children seem to have worn wither strapmshoes or sandals with their kilts. The older boys wear regular oxfords and turn-over-top kneesocks with short trousers.

The Kilt in Scotland

One unansered question HBC has is how commonly Scottish boys wore kilts in the eraly 20th century. The photographs here clearly show that some Scottish boys wire kilts. The Maxwells were, however, a affluent family and the cgildren were quite isolated on their estate. Thus the Maxwell children do not tell is much about how popular the kilt was with Scottish children.






Christopher Wagner






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Created: September 12, 2001
Last updated: September 13, 2001