early kilts with pleats in front?

[timemeddler]

Came across this image today, an it does look like there was some sort of pleating in the front of this 1750 ish painting which is the first I heard of anyone outside of the original utility kilt doing this. So I did a quick internet search and didn't find much on the subject. I know this is definitely not how kilts are now, but in an historical context, was this actually a thing? clan.com mentions one of the changes between great kilts and the small kilt is the pleats were moved back, but this doesn't look like a great kilt to me.
https://clan.com/help/kilts-origins-...21st-centuries

[Mex5150]

Notable lack of sporran as well, could the two be connected?

[figheadair]

The Clan.com article makes some rather strange claims, not least that the pleats were moved from the front to the back, and that the early feileadh Beag had less material (in the lower section )than the belted plaid. There is absolutely no evidence to support either. Similarly, the idea that the late 16th century kilt was made from a clan tartan is wholly without foundation.

In terms of pleats at the front, think of this as pleats all the way around rather than at the front. There are several 18th century portraits that show this feature. It was most likely achieved by using a drawstring - think curtain drapes. The pleats were gathered and not sewn as they are in a modern kilt.

Three examples of all-round-pleating.

Kenneth Sutherland, 3rd Lord Duffus, c.1712


Lord George Murray, 1745


James Francis Edward Moray, Yr of Abercairney, 1756

[Pleater]

I make all sorts of different garments, I made English smocks long before I started sewing kilts.

The design of smocks, doublets and other old types of garments had folds, pleats or cartridge style gathers both front and back. It is the modern kilt with pleats only in the back which is the oddity or perhaps innovation is a kinder description.

Fleas and lice used to find those arrangements convenient places to hide, even able to survive washing, particularly in the folds of oiled work smocks.

I remember being told of the way girls would be required to assist in doing the laundry by taking a darning needle and going over garments squashing or dislodging such pests. My grandmothers were Victorians.

Being able to release a cord, brush off the offending beasties and then gather it up again would have saved an awful lot of botheration.

Anne the Pleater

[timemeddler]

The Clan.com article makes some rather strange claims, not least that the pleats were moved from the front to the back, and that the early feileadh Beag had less material (in the lower section )than the belted plaid. There is absolutely no evidence to support either. Similarly, the idea that the late 16th century kilt was made from a clan tartan is wholly without foundation.

In terms of pleats at the front, think of this as pleats all the way around rather than at the front. There are several 18th century portraits that show this feature. It was most likely achieved by using a drawstring - think curtain drapes. The pleats were gathered and not sewn as they are in a modern kilt.

Three examples of all-round-pleating.

Kenneth Sutherland, 3rd Lord Duffus, c.1712


Lord George Murray, 1745


James Francis Edward Moray, Yr of Abercairney, 1756

that makes sense, all the way around at first, with a flat face being a latter standard.

[timemeddler]

Notable lack of sporran as well, could the two be connected?

you think it might be a "stealth sporran"? like a big pocket in front using the same fabric?

[figheadair]

you think it might be a "stealth sporran"? like a big pocket in front using the same fabric?

There is absolutely no evidence to support this idea. Sporrans were often smaller at the time of the painting and so it may be hidden in the folds. Note the size of his servant's sporran. Alternatively, as a gentleman depicted in his finery he may have chosen to be shown without a sporran.

[timemeddler]

thanks all for the info, now I'm thinking about how to recreate a kilt pleated all around.

[OC Richard]

Isn't the "flat in front, pleats in back" just a byproduct of putting on the breacan-an-feileadh?

At least one that doesn't have a drawstring and is just a rectangle of cloth.

When the "little kilt" was introduced there wouldn't be any reason not to pleat it all around.

I wonder if there was a military influence which helped the "flat in front" small kilt become the 19th century standard.

I say that because when the military dropped the belted plaid and began wearing the small kilt in Full Dress they did so in conjunction with a new garment devised to imitate the look of the belted plaid. It amounted to the upper half of the old belted plaid, ending at the waist, and with a narrow self-belt fastening around the waist (the belt being hidden under the jacket).

I've read that in 1794 this switch took place for enlisted men but for a time Officers continued to wear the old belted plaid. Thus with their new imitation upper-halves, and small kilts with flat fronts, the enlisted men would resemble their Officers wearing the full belted plaids.

(I can't find a date for when Officers' belted plaids were likewise abolished for Full Dress, but I think it would have to have been around 1800. The Officers too wore the new upper-half belted plaids as soon as they switched to small kilts for Full Dress.)

[figheadair]

When the "little kilt" was introduced there wouldn't be any reason not to pleat it all around.

Richard,

I, and Bob Martin before me, make a distinction between the feileadh beag and the kilt. I known that the terms were used interchangeably in the late 18th century but it seem a useful way to differentiate between a sewn garment and one with gathered pleats, by a draw-string for example. The portrait of the MacDonald Boys shows the older boy wearing such a gathered (pleated all the way around) feileadh beag, whereas the portrait of an unidentified 73rd (MacLeod's Highlanders) Officer c.1780 clearly shows a kilt with the pleats sewn in and a flat front.

I wonder if there was a military influence which helped the "flat in front" small kilt become the 19th century standard.

It's possible insofar as the military likes to standardise things for easy of uniformity. That said, one needs to remember that the earliest evidence of a sewn kilt appeared during the Proscription era and so civilian references are rare.