Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Kilt circa 1948

[skenyon101]

Interesting! Since yours is the same age as mine (1948), I wonder if "to pin or not to pin" was an option at the time of manufacture. Thanks, also, for the box pleat verification.

[OC Richard]

I didn't know the army was still pinning their kilts at that late a date.

We could ask Elsie Stuehmeyer, who worked at Thos Gordon & Son as a kiltmaker starting in 1949, if she remembers making strapless army kilts.

She did tell me that it was a pain making those boxpleated army kilts, and a pain sewing on that grass-green herringbone binding because it was so narrow.

She also said that the little two-prong buckles used for army kilts were a pain to buckle, which I've found out myself, having a MOD style Royal Stewart kilt with those buckles. The buckles are almost like the sort used on the back of a waistcoat, buckles designed to grip fabric rather than to be used with leather that has holes punched in it.

Now the RRS has gone over to civilian style buckles (though made in black) which are far easier to buckle.

About the tartan, I have read, and the vintage army kilts I've seen has borne out, that the ORs' kilts of the A&SH and BW used the same tartan. However Officers' and senior Noncommissioned Officers' kilts in the A&SH were made from a different tartan having the green a much lighter shade.

Anyhow for comparison the backside of an A&SH kilt and a BW kilt, the sort with the typical army buckles.

The Argylls kilt, pleated to the dark line in the green square (it's pleated to the same place as a Gordons kilt, that dark line being yellow in Gordon, but of course Gordons kilts are knifepleated)



The Black Watch kilt, pleated to the middle of the blue square