Top band alignment question

[OC Richard]

When aligning the top band, is it aligned with the tartan in the front apron, and the back falls where it may for alignment?

All the kilts I've ever owned were like that, the tartan is lined up across the top of the front apron but simply falls where it may across the pleated portion, whether the kilt is pleated to the sett or pleated to the stripe.

It's an advantage of plain binding like military kilts have.

[Kitfoxdave]

All the kilts I've ever owned were like that, the tartan is lined up across the top of the front apron but simply falls where it may across the pleated portion, whether the kilt is pleated to the sett or pleated to the stripe.

It's an advantage of plain binding like military kilts have.

What material type is the binding used on military kilts? That may be of interest in future kilt resizing exercises! Or God forbid, I make one from scratch.

Thanks dor the help everyone!

[Barb T]

I am well aware that the bright green top binding is a tradition in many military kilts. For a non-military kilt, I vastly prefer a top band that is the same as the tartan. Even if it doesn't exactly match the stripes even in the apron, it is not glaringly different in color. And, for most people, it's a pretty esoteric thing to have a bright green top band on a kilt. Very few people would understand and would simply see it as a very, very odd choice. So, if I were altering a kilt, I wouldn't go there.....Just my two cents......

[OC Richard]

That green binding was pretty much universal on Scottish military kilts from Victorian times up until the Royal Regiment of Scotland was created in 2006.

The binding is grass-green herringbone wool tape. (Wider herringbone wool tape, in scarlet, was traditionally used for military flashes.)

Elsie Stuehmeyer, who made a large number of army kilts while at Thomas Gordon, said that that green tape was a real pain to attach due to it being narrow.

When I ordered a military-spec kilt from House of Edgar (who still weaves the super-heavyweight fuzzy huge-sett old-school military tartan) they used grass-green wool cloth for the binding. They said they couldn't get the green narrow herringbone tape any more.

The 2006 Royal Regiment of Scotland kilts departed from the way military kilts had long been made not only in dropping the green herringbone binding (changing it to black) but also switching from the traditional military two-prong stamped sheet-metal black buckles to the ordinary cast-metal civilian-style buckles (though done up in black).