What do bagpipers wear under their kilts?
Scottish tradition decrees that any man who chooses to wear Highland dress should wear nothing under his kilt but his shirt and his socks. This applies to bagpipers, too.HistoryThe pleated kilt as we know it today developed from the belted plaid, a large, blanketlike piece of tartan. According to an account in John Telfer Dunbar’s “The Costume of Scotland,” a Highlander stood with “nothing on but his shirt” before the tartan plaid and belt were wrapped around his body.MisconceptionsWearing no underpants under the kilt now seems odd. As stated in “The History of Underclothes” by Willett & Cunnington, however, up until the 18th century, European women wore no drawers beneath their skirts and petticoats.Battle RegaliaThere are many accounts of Highlanders discarding their belted plaids before mounting the famous Highland Charge against their enemies, going into battle wearing only their shirts. During the Jacobite Uprising of 1745-6, their Hanoverian foes disparagingly referred to them as
