Box vs Knife Pleats

[jsrnephdoc]

Matt's website is my website now. When he moved on from making kilts and selling kilt hose I bought his inventory and domain from him. New company name, but same web domain.

Thanks for that. On Matt's religion-focused website there are links to his former life, some of which work, some of which don't. I think you've explained why.

Jim Robertson

[OC Richard]

As it happens, it looks like I'm going to take my first plunge in to boxpleated kilts.

For many years this image (early 1850s) has struck me as showing the ideal kilt pleats.

It's somewhere between the modern military boxpleated kilts with IMHO too many pleats, too much fabric, and the pleats too small and the Matt Newsome 4-yard boxpleated kilt with IMHO too few pleats, not enough fabric, and the pleats too big.



As it happens last Saturday I was out at the NorCal Celtic Festival (a Highland Games in fact) and I spotted a gent with a boxpleated kilt very much like that 79th Highlanders kilt above.

Turns out it's a local California maker. I'm sending him 3 yards of double-width heavyweight kilting cloth which IMHO will be perfect.

[PiperPadre]

I look forward to seeing how that turns out, Richard.

[figheadair]

As it happens, it looks like I'm going to take my first plunge in to boxpleated kilts.

For many years this image (early 1850s) has struck me as showing the ideal kilt pleats.

It's somewhere between the modern military boxpleated kilts with IMHO too many pleats, too much fabric, and the pleats too small and the Matt Newsome 4-yard boxpleated kilt with IMHO too few pleats, not enough fabric, and the pleats too big.

As it happens last Saturday I was out at the NorCal Celtic Festival (a Highland Games in fact) and I spotted a gent with a boxpleated kilt very much like that 79th Highlanders kilt above.

Turns out it's a local California maker. I'm sending him 3 yards of double-width heavyweight kilting cloth which IMHO will be perfect.

Richard, I'm sure that you will enjoy you box-pleated kilt. Connecting with another topic, I have a 5-yard one in Dalgiesh's wonderful F1 weight which is about an 18oz cloth that holds the pleats incredible well. Alas, they stopped weaving that soon after the firm was taken over. The tartan is Cameron of Erracht and the kilt was made by the late Bob Martin based one a 79th New York Highlanders' one from c.1860.

[OC Richard]

The tartan is Cameron of Erracht and the kilt was made by the late Bob Martin based one a 79th New York Highlanders' one from c.1860.

The Full Dress uniform adopted in 1858 when the 79th New York was raised has long fascinated me.

It's been the source of a lot of disinformation, which is inexcusable due to several photos showing men wearing it, and one near-complete uniform at the Gettysburg museum. (Sadly it was no longer on display the last time I visited.)

Bob would have known, my knowledge is fuzzy, but my understanding is that the Gettysburg uniform might have the only surviving pre-war kilt, tunic, sporran, and Glengarry.

Years ago (pre-internet) I was corresponding with a guy who had got permission to examine that uniform. He had made patterns off the various items. He said the kilt was machine-stitched, the pleats random (pleated neither to the stripe nor the sett) and that the kilts had been locally made in New York from cloth imported from Scotland.

The disinformation problem stems from the fact that an entirely new Full Dress uniform was introduced after the conclusion of the war, the original Full Dress having been discontinued when the regiment was brought up to full strength in 1861 for war service. Only the four original Companies had ever been issued Full Dress, the new Companies being issued Service Dress as their only uniform. It was in Service Dress, without kilts, that they marched off to war.

Two museums have near-complete post-war Full Dress uniforms and it's photos of these which usually crop up in books about the Civil War. I don't know anything about the post-war kilts.