Quote Originally Posted by figheadair View Post
In an historical contact I meant neither , i.e. they did not exist. Therefore, if one chose to wear either it would be a personal choice but neither would be correct for the mid-18th century style of feileadh beag which, as far as we know, was an unsewn garment.
I've said this before and I'll say it again.....

Do you honestly believe in an army where tailors had the skills to reverse coats and cut them down to make alternative facing waistcoats, plus other items like breeches watch caps etc there was not the skills to stitch old plaids into a neater garnments as per the Phillabeg?

I don't buy this line of thinking that the early military phillabegs were unstitched. Think about how scruffy & prone to falling apart an unsecured phillabeg would be. I think this idea they were unstitched (at least in military use) is a fallacybased on the fact that no early examples have survived. But the skills to do it were definitely there and far more complex tasks were achieved by regimental tailors.