How to buy a kilt - the way it used to be done

[OC Richard]

Off you trot to the nearest kiltmaker, get measured-up, place your order and then wait with strained patience for the wonder garment to arrive.

And all the while you reflect on if this is the way it's always been.

Having my grandmother live with us, my first two kilts were acquired the way it had always been in the time and place she grew up, in a log cabin up a West Virginia holler at a time before "store-boughten" clothes were commonplace.

The process was that I bought the cloth and she made the kilts.

(buy/bought/boughten, sit/sat/satten, etc.)

[Pleater]

In the mid 1950s I wore kilts, I had two, leather straps, fastening on the right, rather long on a 5 to 6 year old.
They were quite old when I got them - but I suspect that if the straps had been replaced it would not have been at all obvious.
My sister point blank refused to wear them and I suspect they were passed on to a cousin, but I do wonder just how old they were, (I suspect over 20 years) and how long they lasted.
Whilst I had them they were washed by hand - I suspect that one encounter with hot water in a washing machine would have ruined them beyond recovery, but back then many garments were woollen and my mother used to wash items by hand in the evenings, leave them to drain overnight and then lay them out on a towel to dry.

Many traditional garment had long lives - English smocks, for instance, were often handed down for a couple of generations or more in the case of children's sized ones. Wool, linen and cotton are long lasting, hard wearing, and were mended or reworked with little thought of it being 'just not the thing'.

Anne the Pleater

[Troglodyte]

In the mid 1950s I wore kilts, I had two, leather straps, fastening on the right, rather long on a 5 to 6 year old.
They were quite old when I got them - but I suspect that if the straps had been replaced it would not have been at all obvious.
My sister point blank refused to wear them and I suspect they were passed on to a cousin, but I do wonder just how old they were, (I suspect over 20 years) and how long they lasted.
Whilst I had them they were washed by hand - I suspect that one encounter with hot water in a washing machine would have ruined them beyond recovery, but back then many garments were woollen and my mother used to wash items by hand in the evenings, leave them to drain overnight and then lay them out on a towel to dry.

Many traditional garment had long lives - English smocks, for instance, were often handed down for a couple of generations or more in the case of children's sized ones. Wool, linen and cotton are long lasting, hard wearing, and were mended or reworked with little thought of it being 'just not the thing'.

Anne the Pleater

Even hand-washing a kilt shows your mum is more daring than I would ever be..!

Although I have put tartan fabric though a hot-wash cycle in a wshing-machine, as well as doing it by hand, to see what the results would be, I have no confidence the structure of a kilt would stand up to it.

I mean, the canvas and lining will respond in different ways to the woollen fabric, and the results may be disasterous - so I'm glad to hear your kilts survived their ordeals.

You're dead right about the durability of woollen cloth garments. About 45 years ago, I inheritied some of my grandfather's gear, which included things I know he had made in the early 1920s. I fortunately had the good sense to grow up to be the same size and height as him, so his old clothes fit me perfectly (even now!) are still being worn after 100 years.

The kilt I wear most frequently is also about 100 years old, so the cost-per-wear and value for money of the old thing is at the bottom of one scale and the top of the other. Only wool has this longevity in my experiance. It's geat stuff.

[Steve Ashton]

"I see it as them are knocking another nail into the coffin of Scottish culture and tradition."

I am not sure I would phrase it in this way. It is a simple fact of the world today that it is far easier, faster, and less expensive to buy weaving yarn that comes from Merino sheep from Australia or New Zealand, Washed/carded/combed in India, spun in Pakistan, dyed in Venezuela or Brazil and used in Tartan weaving mills.

Even back when England was a major wool producer, while most of the herds grazed on church land, much of the processing was done elsewhere. That is one of the ways the Low Countries got wealthy.

In Scotland the large Royal Land Grants had to raise sheep for export just to pay the taxes.

So perhaps another way of expressing it is that the current practices are the Scottish tradition.

[Troglodyte]

"I see it as them are knocking another nail into the coffin of Scottish culture and tradition."

I am not sure I would phrase it in this way. It is a simple fact of the world today that it is far easier, faster, and less expensive to buy weaving yarn that comes from Merino sheep from Australia or New Zealand, Washed/carded/combed in India, spun in Pakistan, dyed in Venezuela or Brazil and used in Tartan weaving mills.

Even back when England was a major wool producer, while most of the herds grazed on church land, much of the processing was done elsewhere. That is one of the ways the Low Countries got wealthy.

In Scotland the large Royal Land Grants had to raise sheep for export just to pay the taxes.

So perhaps another way of expressing it is that the current practices are the Scottish tradition.

I'm not with you here.

Anyone who buys an item of traditional Scottish Highland dress from a foreign producer is depriving the native Scottish artisan.

Whilst the buying customer will have his own ideas, and may have no qualms with buying a Pakistani sporran or a PV kilt from an American maker, none of this trade goes to Scotland and so this is the coffin-nail I mentioned.

Personally, I have no problem with people prefering to buy cheap foreign alternatives, but in doing so they must accept that they are buying what you might call fakes. I would much rather they buy the genuine item from a traditional Scottish maker, but each to their own.

What we cannot do is pretend that the foreign-made items are traditionally Scottish (no mater how well-made they are) or that they are preserving a dying Scottish culture. When it comes to these things, it is far better to make our choices based on value rather than price.

[Jock Scot]

I'm not with you here.

Anyone who buys an item of traditional Scottish Highland dress from a foreign producer is depriving the native Scottish artisan.

Whilst the buying customer will have his own ideas, and may have no qualms with buying a Pakistani sporran or a PV kilt from an American maker, none of this trade goes to Scotland and so this is the coffin-nail I mentioned.


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Personally, I have no problem with people prefering to buy cheap foreign alternatives, but in doing so they must accept that they are buying what you might call fakes. I would much rather they buy the genuine item from a traditional Scottish maker, but each to their own.

.

From where I am placed, I absolutely agree with you. I have never understood how buying goods from outwith Scotland and with no Scottish connection with its production helps Scotland one bit. To say otherwise is entirely insincere. Buy from anywhere in the world, other than Scotland or, perhaps the UK if you so choose, but please don't delude yourselves that you are buying the genuine article or supporting the "home country" or even more importantly, its artisans.