Like all things
golf, it originated in Scotland and probably derived its diminutive
name from the kilt. It’s a mini kilt of sorts – for your shoe. It
probably had the job of keeping rain and mud from the golfer’s
foot, since things can get messy in a hurry in the highlands.
Lore has it that the
Duke of Windsor (of Wallis Simpson fame), popularized many of the
styles of golf shoes worn today when he sported them stateside,
handsomely festooned with the hitherto unknown kiltie. In the Duke’s
time, kilties were known as oxfords – as in the whole shoe – with
a ‘skirt’ of fringed leather draped over the instep covering the
laces and eyelets. Today, the term refers simply to the fringed
accessory that we all know and love.
So, about our
kilties. You may have noticed that they’re pretty generous in width
and length. That’s because like a good set of bangs, they make the
haircut. There’s nothing worse, in my view, than a skimpy kiltie
that’s too short or narrow for the shoe. It’s got a job to do and
ought to have the heft to do it.
The unique feature
of our kiltie is that it has two hidden metal strips inside that
allow you to mold it to the shape of your foot. That keeps it looking
neat and sweet, fitting for a round of golf with his highness. So
wear it or not, as you choose – but remember that it’s history is
a noble, if murky one, and the look, utterly, exquisitely royal.
From
Fairway to Runway
By DAVID COLMANMAY
2, 2012 /
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/fashion/mens-colorful-kilties-return-off-the-fairway.html?_r=0
IN some fashion
quarters, enthusiasm for old-school heritage style is fading like
embers. But elsewhere, it is raging out of control, with evermore
vivid hues and ornate detail. One need only glance down, at the
recent spate of colorized bucks and saddle shoes. Or take a gander at
the even more surprising reappearance of an over-the-vamp,
over-the-top shoe detail one might have thought was gone forever: the
kiltie.
Like some soap-opera
character declared dead in a South American plane crash, only to be
found alive years later (and looking suspiciously like a completely
different actor), the charmingly oddball golf-shoe detail that is the
kiltie is back, in a totally different incarnation. Once an
inescapable facet of 1950s country clubs, a kiltie is a long fringed
tongue of leather that attaches to a golf shoe’s inside tongue and
folds over the laces.
But just as those
golf shoes, with their treacherous metal spikes, were verboten inside
the clubhouse, the kiltie itself almost never appeared other than on
golf shoes. The style, which was first spotted on George V in 1905,
was widely adopted in the ’20s, then faded out in the ’70s. Today
a kiltie is as likely to be found on a golf shoe as those old metal
spikes are.
So the comeback was
not on the links but the runways. Kilties have been spotted here and
there for a couple of seasons, a favorite (in a black-and-white
spectator style) of Thom Browne, but this spring several labels have
come out with them. There is quite a range, too, from subtle styles
in black and brown from Ralph Lauren, Mark McNairy, Billy Reid and
Church’s English Shoes to far more conspicuous color combinations.
Prada made a handful with eye-popping accents.
“I am wearing a
pair even as we speak,” said Billy Reid, on the phone at home in
Florence, Ala. “I love how it reminds me of a country club, and
highballs and whiskey sours. When I was young, my summer job was
bartender and lifeguard at a country club, so I saw a lot of these.”
Mr. Reid said he was
surprised at how well they had sold.
“There’s a lot
of novelty happening in shoes,” he said. “Whether it’s colored
leather, fabric, hardware or soles, that is what guys seem to be
interested in. What I like about the kiltie — at least the way I
did it, in this beat-up horsehide — is that it’s good for the guy
who might want to buy a colorful shoe but doesn’t want to go that
far.”
He pointed out that
they go well with a seersucker suit and also look great with jeans or
khakis, adding a dandified note to lazy summer dressing. As
preposterous as it may sound, the old-fashioned propriety and
slightly silly elegance of the kiltie sends a message: that a man
should both take, and not take, style too seriously.
Far better to let
your shoes explain that than you.
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