Summary

National doll produced to represent a Scottish man. It was purchased at Edinburgh Castle in 1961 for Monica Gates. The doll is dressed in traditional male Scottish dress or Highlander Dress of the style worn by pipers in a pipe band. This consists of a kilt, jacket, long plaid (or pipers' plaid), a sporran (generally a covered in hair), hose, shoes, bagpipes and a bearskin hat. Bearskin hats are only worn by a select few military units as part of their dress uniform and by both civilian and military pipers.

The Gates collection contains 170 national dolls from 74 different countries and some correspondence relating to the acquisition of several of the dolls. The costumes of the dolls represent national costumes from the 19th Century to the 1990s. Monica Gates collected or was given these dolls between 1957 and 1990.

These dolls were purchased as souvenirs of particular countries and like many mass produced souvenirs they are often not accurate representations of a particular country or region, and may actually better reflect neighbouring counties or regions. This occurs because costumes are often stylised and simplified resulting dolls wearing generic costume elements which are common to many countries/regions. Often the fabrics and decorations used are selected to make the dolls cheap and easy to manufacture and aesthetically pleasing. This can result in the fabrics, colours and decorations of the doll's clothing having little or no reflection of the costume associated with a particular country or region they are meant to be representative of.

Physical Description

Male dressed in red tartan kilt and navy blue top. He carries bagpipes. On his head he wears a bearskin hat and a sporran hangs at the front of his kilt. His eyes open and close, but have a tendency to get stuck in a closed position.

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