Kilt Accessories

Six pieces make a complete outfit. A sporran, a kilt belt and buckle, kilt hose, flashes, ghillie brogues and a kilt pin. A jacket and waistcoat sit on top for formal wear, and a fly plaid and brooch are added for evening. For casual wear you can wear a kilt with boots and a belt and nothing else.

A sporran, because a kilt has no pockets and without one you have nowhere to put your phone. Then a belt and buckle, which holds the waist and finishes the front. Hose and flashes come third. Ghillie brogues are the piece people most often skip, and plain black shoes will pass at most events.

Only the tartan pieces, and even then only loosely. Hose, flashes and a tie can take one colour pulled from the sett rather than reproducing it, which usually looks better than matching everything. Leather and metal do not relate to the tartan at all. What does need to match is the metal finish across sporran, buckle and pin.

Mixing metal finishes. Chrome on the belt buckle and antique brass on the kilt pin is the mismatch that shows in every photograph, and almost nobody notices it while getting dressed. Pick one finish and carry it across sporran cantle, buckle and pin. The second most common is overdressing the sporran for a daytime event.

Belt at the natural waist over the kilt. Sporran a hand's width below the buckle, hanging over the front apron. Kilt pin through the front apron only, never both layers, roughly four inches up from the hem and two inches in from the edge. Flashes at the fold of the hose, just below the knee, with the tabs showing.

All leather goods are 100% genuine leather, not bonded or coated substitutes. Tartan pieces such as hose tops, flashes and ties use premium acrylic woven to the sett. Metalwork is chrome or antique finished. Every product page states its material, so you can check before ordering rather than guessing from a photograph.

A short strap that adds a few inches to a kilt's waist fastening, letting a kilt still fit after weight change without being remade. Worth knowing about before you assume a kilt no longer fits. They attach at the existing buckle and are far cheaper than alteration or replacement.

Kilt first, fastening left over right with the buckles on your right hip. Then hose and flashes, then shoes. Then belt if you are not wearing a waistcoat. Then sporran, adjusted to hang correctly. Kilt pin last, through the front apron only. Jacket over the top, and fly plaid last of all if you are wearing one.