When it comes to Christmas parties, New Year’s celebrations and winter weddings, traditional highland wear has always been seen as a statement of true Scottish identity. However, new data analysis by Young’s Hire has revealed that there are, in fact, more proud Scots in England than in Scotland when it comes to donning a kilt and sporran and doing the highland fling!
The research carried out by Young’s Hire, the largest formalwear hire company in the UK, has analysed more than 400,000 garment hires during the last 12 months and revealed some fascinating trends when it comes to men and their outfits.
It seems the Hogmanay celebrations are transcending the boarder, and surprisingly, a whole host of English cities saw more tartan rentals than their Scottish counterparts this year, as Manchester (10%) Leicester (12%) and Sheffield (10%) all topped Dundee (9%).
Surprisingly Aberdeen accounted for just two percent of the UK’s highland wear hires – ranking well below Liverpool (6%), Bristol (6%), Newcastle (4%), and Cardiff (3%).
When it comes to the traditional ‘top hat and tails’ at weddings, the North/South divide has never been more apparent, with London topping the charts when going all out to impress, accounting for more than 10% of the total top hat rentals.
Northern cities on the other hand, tend to avoid donning their ‘best bib and tucker’ when heading to weddings and other formal functions, with Newcastle accounting for a measly 0.014% of all top hat rentals. Also choosing to err against traditional top hat and tails get up were the people of Manchester (1%) and Leeds (2%).
Chris Burns, at Young’s Hire, comments: “It’s always fascinating to take a more holistic look at the formalwear trends around the UK, and it’s great to see that although people are really broadening their horizons when it comes to suiting-up for a special occasion, the traditional items like a top hat and tailcoat are still proving very popular. It’s great that traditional Scottish highland wear is still going strong and is growing in popularity across England.”
