These very comfortable ghillies are mocassin type shoes and are not intended to provide long term support for weak arches or playing basketball. Let's examine the possibilities. Webster says that a brogue is a heavy leather workshoe often decorated in a perforated pattern, a design common in men's dress shoes today. A brogan shoe, again, is a heavy workshoe, with a pattern of large headed nails embedded in the soles called hobnails. Here is where we make some progress.
Gillies are low cut shoes with decorative lacing.
Shoes tied by means of a cord looped through slots instead of eyelets, and often finished winding around the ankle. The design is such that a pair could be made at home, by a semi-skilled craftsman. A gillie is also a hunting and fishing guide, or a servant to a clan chieftain. Craigie's new entry into the footwear race.