AS A 14-year-old Scot, I had firm views about how fashionable kilts were; they weren’t. End of story. Expression of national pride, maybe; style statement, absolutely not. Kilts were itchy, heavy things that chafed thighs and caused curious sweating around the midriff. Teamed, for no good reason, with hefty sporrans weighted especially to strike viciously at the vitals if one were foolish enough to move faster than on tiptoe.

Oh, the humiliation of the kilt-wearing youth! Bad enough in Scotland, where misery at least had company. Worse still, at parties south of the border, where taller, clearer-skinned Sassenach peers would point and giggle and talk about “the Jock tranny in the skirt” and a chubby-faced girl (always a chubby-faced girl) would ask the “are you a true Scotsman?” question before sneaking up from behind to investigate the matter for herself. Oh, how we all suffered! Kilts? Cool? No chance. My 14-year-old self simply wouldn’t have stood for it.

Which goes to show how out of touch my 14-year-old self would be today. Because kilts are cool, and getting cooler. In one of the most unexpected developments on the streets of Edinburgh since someone noticed that it hadn’t rained for an hour or two last March, the young men have started wearing kilts to go clubbing. Kids in kilts. Being cool.

To be fair, we’re not talking normal kilts here. We’re talking hipster kilts, combat kilts, pinstripe kilts and plain. Kilts made of denim, velvet, satin and PVC. What does a true Scotsman wear under one of these? Talcum powder, most likely. Chubby-faced girls beware. There is nothing new about this, of course. The idea of “wacky” and “confrontational” kilts is a gimmick that rears its head every decade or so — Jean Paul Gaultier has worn them for years, and it’s hard to forget Axl Rose’s leather number at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert in 1992. This time round, though, something unexpected has happened: people are actually wearing them.

Much of this is due to the efforts of the Edinburgh-born kilt designer Howie Nicholsby. The youngest member of the family firm Geoffrey (Tailor) Kiltmakers, Nicholsby set up his own range of “21st-century kilts” at London Fashion Week in 1999 and raised eyebrows at the Men in Skirts Exhibition at the Victoria & Albert earlier this year. He is also now Scotland’s celebrity kiltmaker of choice, most recently having fitted up Robbie Williams when the singer visited Edinburgh earlier this year.

Nicholsby wears a modern kilt every day (normally a more discreet wool or pinstripe number) and caused family friction by turning up to his sister’s wedding in a creation stitched out of shiny silver vinyl. Similar creations, made by designers such as Vivienne Westwood, Burberry, Mulberry and SAS were auctioned for charity at the opening of the Harvey Nichols store in Edinburgh earlier this year.

Traditional types, who see the kilt as an altogether more dignified item of clothing, are less than happy about these brash new kids on the block. “It’s debatable whether these garments are truly kilts,” frowns Ian Chisholm, of Duncan Chisholm & Sons, of Inverness, a firmly old-school kiltmaking establishment. “These are fashion items. There are certain things that make a kilt — that they are a certain cut or a certain material, have certain pleats. Most of the time I don’t think you could call these kilts at all.”

Nicholsby gives such disapproval short shrift: “I’m a traditionalist. I wear a kilt every day. And in ancient times they could be made of any material, just like mine. The idea that they have to be tartan is a modern one, and actually English in origin. So somebody wearing a Bonnie Prince Charlie outfit is actually wearing an English design. At least mine are truly Scottish.”

The idea that somebody wearing a pink satin, ribbed, wraparound would be wearing true Scottish garb while an extra from Brigadoon would not is certainly a controversial one, and not just among traditional kiltmakers. Fashionable or not, a lot of trendy modern kilts look — unsurprisingly — a bit daft. However, while the extreme new designs are unlikely to give the conventional kilt much of a run for its money in the long term, some of the more subtle ones just might.

These kilts are still made of heavy tweed, but are plain black, brown, blue, grey or green, rather than tartan. They look and hang like traditional men’s kilts, the key difference being that they are cut lower, sitting fashionably on the hips, not somewhere above the belly-button, as with old-fashioned tartans. And, most crucially, they are worn without a sporran, so you can dance without doing yourself mischief. They are, basically, sensible, stylish skirts for men. And they look rather good.

One recent convert to the such kilts is Craig Menzies, the manager of Hamilton’s Bar and Kitchen in Edinburgh’s fashionable Stockbridge ion Edinburgh. He recently placed an order for 12 plain black kilts, to be worn by his male bar staff. “They’ll be wearing them with black shirts on top,” he says. “It’s a very Scottish look, but it’s cool, too.”

Not just cool, but also versatile. Wearing a plain kilt with a shirt or jumper looks relaxed and trendy, if a trifle hillwalker-ish. Wearing one with a jacket and tie looks even better, and can make a man stand out among the endless DJ and kilt-jacket clones at a Scottish black-tie event. Would my 14-year-old self have stood for it? Probably not. It’s still a skirt, after all.

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