Erikka Askeland: Be it leather or denim, the kilt's the real deal

Sure, it's tricky. No-one wants to make the same mistakes as the short, obese George IV did as Scots sniggered behind their hands at his get up involving a scarlet tartan over bright pink pantaloons devised to hide his fat, fleshy legs. Nor do they want to be "haunted" - as former first minister Jack McConnell has been - by wearing a radically inappropriate and perhaps too tight ensemble at a high profile public event, the photographic evidence of which will live on forever.

From long association with the proper way to dress it up or down - with a rugby shirt and a plastic pint cup for a trip to Murrayfield or the silver-buttoned formal jacket for the wedding - Scots men often know how to carry it off. But there is now an undeniable and increasing amount of "kilt envy" among non-Scots-born men.

For one thing it is an unusual, sensual experience being able to feel the breeze on one's thighs and the woolly swish of the fabric. Not to mention those admiring glances it can attract. The actor Colin Firth has admitted his kilt-wearing scene in the award winning film The King's Speech was his favourite part - albeit he feels that offscreen he is "not quite Scottish enough to get away with it".

But even a smidgen of Scottish ancestry can give a potential kilt-wearer licence. One recent emigre to Edinburgh I know who has taken to wearing one has pictures of both his maternal and paternal grandfathers in their regimental kilts to prove it. The historic Edinburgh firm Kinloch Anderson, tailors and kiltmakers to the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales, employs a master kiltmaker who does refurbishments and who has more than once handled old kilts with First World War bullet holes and made them ready for the next generation.

But other non-Scots are increasingly enjoying the trend to rent a kilt. One friend told me of his first recent wearing of a kilt at a castle north of the Kincardine Bridge after a training course.

Part of the fun for most has to do with the age old question of what to wear underneath. Yet this is also the source of some danger, as my friend at the castle found when the discussion inevitably arose with a similarly attired Scot who purported to know the unequivocal answer.

So when the Scotsman returned and slyly showed the new English kilt fan what appeared to be a pair of recently removed pants stashed in his sporran, the challenge was laid bare. To be sure, in that fine Scots tradition, there was some drinking going on which inevitably fuelled the decision that he, too, should join in. Only to find out later that the Scotsman actually kept a spare pair handy, just to wind up gullible Englishmen.But if the temptation arises to indulge the beating Braveheart inside most male chests with kilt, you would be better to wear the real thing, not the rather more skirt-like concoctions available at tartan tat shops for a tenner. Instead you want one with the full eight yards of pleated wool. Although there are some designers, including Howie Nicholsby, who are pioneering the modern kilt in a range of fabrics - leather, denim, even silver PVC.

Ironically, kilts are actually rather manly - an aspect now understood by most even outside of Scotland. When I tried to tease a young American girl of my acquaintance, telling her I lived in a place where men regularly wore skirts, the eight-year-old rolled her eyes and said, "Duh, they are kilts, not skirts."

When the Acts of Proscription which banned the wearing of kilts was repealed in 1782, the proclamation said it was the ones wearing the bifurcated trousers that were more girlish. It said: "You are no longer bound to the unmanly dress of the lowlander". By all means, wear the kilt and wear it with masculine pride whoever you are.

But please, do keep your pants on.