Skirting Obscenity

[The Wizard of BC]

Alan is totally correct in his making a skirt for a girl shape. It's called slope.

I do this to every kilt I make. If the customer wears his kilt at full rise the slope is minimal.
But the lower the kilt is worn the more important slope becomes.

This is true for people who have lots of shape too.

A lot of kiltmakers look at me weird when I tell them I put slope in a kilt. They have never heard of it before. But if you look at the kilts in the photo that goes around the forum from "The Windsor Style" of the kilts hanging in the closet you will see slope in them.

If my explanation of slope is still not making sense simply put on a pair of jeans and stand sideways in front of a mirror. You will see that the waistband is significantly higher in the back than in the front. This is slope.

[Dixiecat]

Alan is totally correct in his making a skirt for a girl shape. It's called slope.

I do this to every kilt I make. If the customer wears his kilt at full rise the slope is minimal.
But the lower the kilt is worn the more important slope becomes.

This is true for people who have lots of shape too.

A lot of kiltmakers look at me weird when I tell them I put slope in a kilt. They have never heard of it before. But if you look at the kilts in the photo that goes around the forum from "The Windsor Style" of the kilts hanging in the closet you will see slope in them.

If my explanation of slope is still not making sense simply put on a pair of jeans and stand sideways in front of a mirror. You will see that the waistband is significantly higher in the back than in the front. This is slope.

Yes, waist slope or tilt is very common. It can consist of several things, extra length to go over curves, how the body bends in front, how the abdomen is shaped and of course, fashion.

I would say that 98% of people will tilt forwards. Men with full abdomens who wear their belts under the abdomen will have a steeper tilt which is why you'd want to tell your kiltmaker how you wear your kilt. A skirt of someone with a full backside might look like it tilted, but the extra height in the back is the extra length needed to go over the backside.

When I drafted custom sewing patterns we used quite a few measurements for skirts. Front, back and side waist measured to the floor and to the knee, were the most useful not only for finding the waist tilt, but for hem positioning.

To get these measurements, tie a string around the waist or where you'd like the waist to be, measure to the floor or to the knee at the front, back and side seam.

[Alan H]

Regarding slope....intuitively it seems like kind of a no-brainer for a pretty experienced kiltmaker to work that into a solid color, or random-pattern kilt.

However, my two experiences with trying to make a good looking tartan kilt like this were...uh.... "trying" to say the least. I did it, and they looked fine but it wasn't easy.