early kilts with pleats in front?

[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.