Consider the steps into wearing the kilt. First you have to think about it, then you have to actually obtain a kilt, then you have to wear it outside and discover that nothing bad whatsoever will happen when you do. Next, you'll probably end up with a dozen or so kilts, wear them every day, and be immediately fingered in the neighbourhood as "the guy in the kilt".

Now ponder the gap between steps 1 (think about it) and 2 (obtain a kilt). If you're not sure how step 3 (wearing it outside) is going to go, how likely is it that you're going to plonk down US$500 or more on something that you may wear only once and then retreat in humiliation and derision in public? But, on the other hand, if you're only out a tenth of that to give it a shot, then it's a lot more likely you'll try it and discover, as almost all of us do, that wearing a kilt in public is largely a non-event and that most of the interactions with strangers are positive and sometimes delightful.

My first kilt was actually hand-sewn by me (and hardly authentic), but something I could afford which looked good enough to try out in public. So, I tried it out. Nothing happened. So then it was all Bear Kilts, Stillwater, Utilikilts, and the rest, including some more authentic interpretations, but in synthetics because my skin doesn't support wool.

Look, most people don't have any idea what will happen when they venture out in a kilt. We can say as much as we wish from experience, "nothing", but people have to try it for themselves to believe it. Fine--isn't it great that maybe 100 times as many people can discover that for fifty bucks off the rack than for ten times that for a custom order that takes a month or more to arrive?