Burns Night Kilts

A kilt in your clan or district sett, a jacket, a sporran, kilt hose with flashes and ghillie brogues. An Argyll jacket is the safe default and works for almost every supper. Reserve a Prince Charlie for a formal black tie evening. If you have no kilt, dark trousers with a jacket and tie is perfectly acceptable and nobody will comment.

Sometimes, and the invitation will usually say. A formal club or society supper often is, in which case Highland dress means a Prince Charlie jacket, a three button waistcoat and a bow tie. A supper in someone's house or a pub back room is not, and turning up in full evening Highland dress to one of those is more awkward than underdressing.

Your own family sett if you have one, otherwise a district tartan tied to where your family came from, or any universal sett. There is no tartan reserved for the occasion and no expectation that it relate to Burns himself. If you are attending as a group and want coordination, one neutral sett across the party photographs better than four different clan tartans.

The company is piped in, the Selkirk Grace is said, the haggis is carried in and addressed with Burns's poem, then the meal is eaten. Afterwards come the Immortal Memory, the Toast to the Lassies and the Reply, plus recitations and songs. It runs late and is far less formal in feel than the running order suggests.

Three separate occasions. Burns Night is the twenty fifth of January, marking the poet's birthday. St Andrew's Day is the thirtieth of November, Scotland's national day. Hogmanay is New Year's Eve. All three see Highland dress worn, and a kilt bought for one covers the other two without any change.