Military Box-Pleats: some questions for the rabble.

[Chas]

A totally non-scientific observation.



If we number these from the top, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

1 & 2 - Look like all my kilts. No. 2 for preference.

5 - Don't know that I have ever seen.

6 - Tend to look like No.2

3 & 4 - All the ones I have seen tend to splay out (both single and double box). There is a visible gap between the pleats. I make no judgement as to why - made that way, incorrect measurements, added weight, lack of pressing. I don't know, but I can always tell.

As I say, non-scientific and what it all means, I don't know that either. All I know is that I can tell which is a box or double box pleated kilt, just by looking.

Regards

Chas

[M. A. C. Newsome]

3 & 4 - All the ones I have seen tend to splay out (both single and double box). There is a visible gap between the pleats. I make no judgement as to why - made that way, incorrect measurements, added weight, lack of pressing. I don't know, but I can always tell.

You probably have seen a lot of knife pleated kilts with pleats splayed out, as well, but the pleating style makes it less noticeable. If the kilt fits properly, and the pleats are taken care of in terms of proper pressing, there should be no splaying. It should look like this.


Now, if the pleats go to getting a little bit wonky, with a knife pleated kilt a keen observer will surely notice the pleats are not hanging straight, but it's not overly obvious. With a box pleated kilt, because it is constructed so that the facing pleats touch each other, when they don't (leaving a gap between the pleats) it is quite apparent. This "gap" is not an issue with knife pleats, even though the pleats may in fact be splayed just as badly.

I'll also take the opportunity to point out here that the "double box pleated kilt" is an invention of Lady Chrystel and doesn't have an historical precedent. (I'm not saying that as a positive or negative, just a point of fact that you will not find such a pleating style in the historic record).

[English Bloke]

... A totally non-scientific observation.... All the ones I have seen tend to splay out (both single and double box). There is a visible gap between the pleats. I make no judgement as to why ... All I know is that I can tell which is a box or double box pleated kilt, just by looking.

Chas, of course you can.

Bit off the original topic but that's one of the reasons I like box and double box Kilts. It's because the aren't knife pleated and are not 'trying' to be knife pleated and therefore are a pleasing variation (to me at least... but then I would say that, I've got one).

Anywhooo... I encountered an ex Army, Mackenzie Modern (Seaforth Highlanders) Military Box recently. To be honest, a beautiful Kilt but to look their best, they seem pretty high maintenance and I would think you'd need to know what you were doing. It would be a shame to walk out in an expensive custom made kilt that looked a mess in the pleatage.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Anywhooo... I encountered an ex Army, Mackenzie Modern (Seaforth Highlanders) Military Box recently. To be honest, a beautiful Kilt but to look their best, they seem pretty high maintenance and I would think you'd need to know what you were doing. It would be a shame to walk out in an expensive custom made kilt that looked a mess in the pleatage.

Something that a lot of people don't know (and why would they?) but the Seaforth Highlanders actually had narrow bands of black elastic tacked into the inside of the pleats to "pull" them all back into place and keep everything neat and tidy.

[xman]

Something that a lot of people don't know (and why would they?) but the Seaforth Highlanders actually had narrow bands of black elastic tacked into the inside of the pleats to "pull" them all back into place and keep everything neat and tidy.

Why not stitch the 'boxes' down with thread? I think there should be plenty of swing remaining.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Why not stitch the 'boxes' down with thread? I think there should be plenty of swing remaining.

I suppose one could. One could also sew down the entire length of a knife pleat so that the pleats would not have to ever be repressed. I've just never seen an example of it being done on a Scottish kilt.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Ok, a picture is worth a thousand words. Hopefully these images will help.

Here is a photo of a four yard box pleated kilt in the very beginning stage of construction. It's the R'lyeh sett, FYI. I've just started to pin up the pleats for sewing. Note that at this point, they look like very wide knife pleats all running the same direction.


That's how the pleats are sewn. When they are all sewn, next I flip the kilt over so that the inside of the kilt is face up, and I open up & flatten the inside "loop" of each pleat, so that now the pleats each run in two directions, not one. Here's a photo from The Art of Kiltmaking supplement of me in the process of doing this with a Ferguson kilt.


And Barb's diagram from the same reference showing this process more clearly.


Now, to better illustrate the point, here's another kilt in progress from the R'lyeh tartan, but made with 5 yards (if I recall correctly), so the pleats are a bit more narrow. At this stage I have just finished sewing in the pleats, but have done nothing else.


Is this going to be a knife pleated kilt or a box pleated kilt? I don't know. I have made kilts from this tartan both ways, so this photo could be from either. At this stage in the construction process, the two would be exactly the same. I could either open up all the pleats to form boxes and steek them in that way, or I could steek them in all laying the same direction, to make either the box or knife pleated kilt.