Canada at War: THE SERVICES: The Cut of the Kilt

Canadian Army women may skirl bagpipes—but not in kilts that show the knees. In Ottawa. National Defense Headquarters ruled that man-size kilts on a woman are a breach of Scottish tradition.

The trouble started because the bagpipers of the Canadian Women’s Army Corps Pipe Band wanted to wear short kilts. Defense Headquarters cited authorities. The cut of a woman’s kilt, it pointed out, must “for anatomical reasons” be different from a man’s; it must be longer. The above-the-knee kilt for women was “a travesty of the male attire … an affront to the Gael.” The C.W.A.C. pipers would have to wear regulation drab khaki uniforms—at least until a more decorous, calf-length kilt could be designed.

Canadian Scots protested, tradition or no. They pointed out that the Vancouver Glengarry Girls Pipe Band wears knee-revealing kilts and that no Gael feels affronted. Said Robert Fiddes, president of the Vancouver St. Andrew’s and Caledonian Society: “A kilt improves the look of any lassie.” A regulation kilt, he declared, should fall just above the knee, not below. A true Scot is proud to show his knees, no matter how bony, and a lassie should be allowed to do the same—”she certainly has more to show.”