Circumcising a kilt, strapping it on and twiddling touries

After a hiatus whenceupon he journeyed to sample the wears of Savile Row, Fifth Avenue and Sauchiehall Street, The Style Guy is back in fighting form, ready to take on your most challenging queries of Highland taste. Like a bite-size dark chocolate Bounty, The Style Guy has a dark and somewhat bitter exterior, but on the inside he’s fluffy and sweet. Let’s check his trick-or-treat bag for some goodies.

Dear Style Guy:

Those little loops that kilt-makers always put at the top of every kilt. What are they for? Does anyone actually use them? They drive me crazy what with them always sticking up and over my kilt, ruining my look. No matter what I do, they keep popping up.

What are these loops for and how should I deal with them?

Signed,

Loopy in Louisiana

Well, hang on Loopy – Loopy hang on.

I, too, have wondered about these loops. Personally I have never used them. My guess is that they are intended to use to hang up one’s kilt on a hook or nail or tree branch when there’s not a proper hanger around. But unless you’re a ghillie on the Balmoral Estate, tromping around the heather shooting rabbits and sleeping rough next to the Dee and having to hang your garment on a blackberry bush, these loops are for all purposes useless.

I used to try to tuck them into the top of my kilt, but they’d inevitably find their way up and out and, like you said, ruin my sartorial splendor. Then I found a decent solution: thread the top strap through them to keep them at bay. But this seemed equally bedraggled.

Finally, a few years ago I plucked up all of my courage, found a sharp pair of scissors and . . . snip, snip – cut them off. Gone, done, never to infuriate me again.

Cutting off a piece of such an expensive accoutrement seemed unnatural; like I was sinning against the great tartan god. But I got over it. It was like a little kilt circumcision. I suggest you do the same and obliterate the little buggers forever.