How Many Years in the Switch from Box to Knife Pleat?

[Bugbear]

For the same reason as they perpetuated knife-pleated to the stripe: Economics. It takes much less fabric to pleat Black Watch, Gordon, Hunting Stewart, or Mackenzie to the stripe than to the sett. If you're making many kilts at once, the savings would add up quickly.

Not really. Very few so-called 'eight yard' military kilts contain eight yards. With the tartans I mentioned only half of the sett is used per pleat. And, yes, uniformity was also a consideration.

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You are clearly stating this is a technique used in pleating to the stripe.
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Concerning the original box-pleated military kilts, I would agree that it was done for uniformity and nothing more. I'm suggesting that the military chose not to adopt the later trend of pleating to the sett for both uniformity and economics.

Sure, if a full repeat is used per pleat than the savings are nominal, maybe only 20 inches or so worth of cloth. However, by only using a half repeat per pleat the saving is considerable.

Suppose two kilts are being made. Both are made to the measurements of 33" Waist and 39" Hips" (My own measurements! ) Both are made from 18 oz. cloth in Black Watch which has an approximate repeat of 13 1/2 inches. Both kilts will also have 27 pleats. Assuming one didn't "cheat the pleats", pleating to the sett using a full repeat per pleat would use roughly 12.5 yards. (A ridiculous number to be sure, and anyone would definitely cheat the pleats.) The second kilt, pleated to the stripe, using only half repeats per pleat would only require about 6.5 yards. So, no, in this the case the savings are quite considerable.

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You seem to compare this technique to "cheating the pleats," which is where I got the term, but describe it as using half the repeat. So- I guess we could call it half repeat pleating, instead?

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Matt,

Yes, the twelve-and-a-half yard monster I suggested is just a hypothetical example. (Wouldn't that be fun to make? ) Anyone who wanted a kilt pleated to the sett using such a large pattern (like Black Watch) would realistically have to settle for one of two options:

1) Fewer pleats (say fifteen or seventeen) with a wider reveal but uniform depth throughout the kilt.

2) "Cheating the Pleats". This would be used to maintain the high number of pleats (27) I suggested in my example. However, some elements in the tartan don't repeat themselves so there would not be a uniformity of pleat depth. Every few pleats would require using the full repeat of the sett. Sure, this would drastically reduce the kilt's overall yardage from the aforementioned twelve-and-a-half yards, but you would still need about eight yards to accomplish this. Eight yards is still a lot more than six-and-a-half, especially when dealing with many kilts being made from the same bolt of tartan.

The army is nothing if not frugal and in situations like the Great War, where there was a high 'turnover' of kilts, economy of cloth would become an issue fairly quickly. Almost every detail of a military kilt indicates economy of cloth: no apron fringe, small apron facings, non-tartan waistbands and buckle tabs. (The latter two also make alteration easier.)

Yes, I've made traditional box-pleated and low-yardage knife-pleated kilts to the sett as well, but I'm referring to military kilts that 'require' a high number of pleats. So I still maintain that it was done for both tradition and economics.

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Ok, my question, now that I have a better term, are there any kilts from that time period that have been pleated with half repeats? We know they were all pleated to the stripe. Or could this be a newer innovation being used in kilt construction?
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When John speaks of "cheating the pleats" he is describing a way of pleating to the sett without necessarily having to include a full repeat of the sett in each and every pleat.

As this is a technique used when pleating certain tartans with a large repeat to the sett, and pleating to the sett did not come about until the very end of the nineteenth century, therefore there are no nineteenth century examples (that I am aware of) of kilts pleated this way.

In terms of pleating to the stripe, I suppose one could apply the same term to cases where a kilt was pleated to a stripe that repeated more than once per sett repeat. In this case there are many different examples of Black Watch tartan kilts (and any sett based on Black Watch) where the stripe pleated to is repeated twice per sett so that every pleat contains only half of the sett repeat.

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I understand what you are saying. Here is where John is saying something different from you.

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Ordinarily, in a kilt pleated to stripe, each pleat would contain a single repeat of the sett.

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I wanted to know if John knew of any period kilts that had his "half repeat" technique, or if he was basing this only on his modern training in kilt making.
Well, unless he's a couple hundred years old or something like that...
I apologize.