G irls wear a kilt, a white blouse with puffy, short sleeves, a velvet vest with gold or silver piping, and diamond pattern Argyle stockings in colors that compliment the kilt. Boys have a kilt and sporran, white shirt and bow tie, a Cummerbund, jacket and Balmoral bonnet. The youngest dancers can get by with a kilt, white shirt and white socks. Parents count this leniency for the little tykes a blessing, because a complete outfit is expensive. N one of the components of this uniform are particularly easy to come by in Canada.
Few tailors can create an authentic, Scottish kilt.
We are not talking about common plaid skirts that are erroneously called kilts in a retail clothing store. Depending on the size of the dancer and the pattern, or sett, chosen, kilts are made from a many as nine yards of worsted material for an adult, pleated more or less deeply at the back depending on the width of the sett. Highland dancing was exclusively for men in the olden days. Young laddies were proud of their terpsichorean talents, as suggested in the poem, McAllister Dances Before the King . They really must be seen to be understood, but further details about each form are available at another excellent site .