Great Kilts

[Jimmy Carbomb]

Jimmy,
Sounds like you are doing something that the military did towards the end of the eighteenth century -- sew in the pleats of the feilidh-mhor to make it easier to put on. I'm doing the same for a client now (or will be, I should say, when the cloth comes in). Nothing new under the sun, I'm afraid!

Matt

If it was that minor of a change, then you would be correct sir! It's much more than that little sewing run, and one that will make it as easy to wear and store as a "little kilt". All the while, it will maintain the look of one that's wrapped.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Here is what we do know:

There is a painting of at least 1 Noble in a solid red great kilt.

There is a period account of Highlander's kilts being "Brown to hide on the heath"

So based on that I beleive that a typical great kilt was a big brown blanket. Now if I wanted someone to think "Braveheart" yeah I would wear a bright colored tartan broadcloth. If I wanted to hide on the heather myself I would pick a predominantly brown tartan and so would you, but keep in mind that camoflage printed cloth was a 20th century idea.

We could argue this to death but we can NOT prove our points.

It's not really that mysterious, Robert. I'm not doubting that solid color great kitls were worn. In fact, I know they were worn. What I'm saying is that they were not the norm. You are taking two isolated examples and concluding from them that the solid kilt was the norm.

This ignores all of the varied evidence that tartan was the cloth of choice for the plaid.

First of all, the quote you mention about brown being preferred to blend in with the heath, I assume is from George Buchanan's account of 1581, which says (in translation):

They delight in variegated garments, especially stripes, and their favorite colors are purple and blue. Their ancestors wore plaids of many colours, and numbers still retain this custom but the majority now in their dress prefer a dark brown, imitating nearly the leaves of the heather, that when lying upon the heath in the day, they may not be discovered by the appearance of their clothes; in these wrapped rather than covered, they brave the severest storms in the open air, and sometimes lay themselves down to sleep even in the midst of snow.

Now you can read from this that the majority of people were wearing solid brown plaids, and you can also read from this that the browns were woven in some kind of tartan pattern. He really doesn't say, though he does specifically point out that they prefer variegated striped patterns (what we would call tartan). But my point here is that he is most likely writing of the plaid worn unbelted, not the great kilt. The earliest evidence we have of the plaid being worn belted (i.e. great kilt) comes 13 years later in 1594.

Once we get into the seventeenth century, when we know for a fact that the plaid was being worn belted, every picture we have showing this, with the exception of a 1635 portrait of Campbell of Lochawe, shows the great kilt in tartan. Your conjecture is that this was simply done by the nobility or upper class, and the common man still wore solid brown. But this is not really true. Many of the portraits were of soldiers, including this one from 1631, which clearly shows tartan:
http://albanach.org/belted-plaid.jpg

And apart from paintings and woodcuts, we also have written descriptions. In 1618 John Taylor, a poet from London, described the native dress of the Highlanders. He writes, "...with a plead about their shoulders, which is a mantle of divers colours..."

William Sacheverell, Governor of the Isle of Man, in 1688 writes of the Highlanders: “The usual outward habit of both sexes is the pladd; the women’s much finer, the colours more lovely, and the squares larger than the men's and put me in mind of the ancient Picts." His description of the square patterns here indicates he is talking about tartan.

Of course there is Martin Martin, writing in 1703. “...every isle differs form each other in their fancy of making plaids, as to the Stripes in Breadth and Colours. This Humour is as different thro’ the main Land of the Highlands in so far that they who have seen those Places is able, at the first view of a Man’s Plaid, to guess the place of his residence.” Again, he is obviously describing tartan patterns here.

We also should make mention of the fact that the word "plaid" which originally was a Gaelic word for a blanket or mantle, regardless of pattern, has come to be synonymous in English with tartan -- this could only have occurred if the plaids were so regularly made in tartan pattern as to confuse the two terms. As early as 1639 we have Daniel Defoe (author of Robinson Crusoe) writing of Scottish Highland soldiers wearing stockings and short cloaks made from "a stuff they call plaid, striped across red and yellow." By "plaid" he means "tartan." This confusion would not be likely to happen if the belted plaids were most often a solid color.

So I will agree 100% that the belted plaids (great kilts) were not always tartan. They were sometimes solid. But I still have to stand firm on the historical evidence that indicates they were most often tartan -- so much so that this pattern would still be considered characteristic of Highland dress even today.

Aye,
Matt

[bubba]

Out of all this my impression would be that the wealthier the person the brighter the tartan. It's entirely possible the most common might have been in shades of brown. After all, brown does come in a wide variety of shades and tones. Just a guess on my part.

[davedove]

Out of all this my impression would be that the wealthier the person the brighter the tartan. It's entirely possible the most common might have been in shades of brown. After all, brown does come in a wide variety of shades and tones. Just a guess on my part.

That's probably a reasonable guess. Throughout history, some colors were just more expensive than others, so it stands to reason that would also be the case for tartan.

[Dreadbelly]

That's probably a reasonable guess. Throughout history, some colors were just more expensive than others, so it stands to reason that would also be the case for tartan.

Yeah. Like that purple that came from the sea snails. I think it was the Pheonicians that built an empire around that.

So vibrant and pretty.

[MacConnachie]

I expect that there has been some discussion of various "costumery" related sites on the internet, but the following link will give a person access to a site where the matter of what ancient Celtic peoples wore and didn't wear is discussed with some apparent "authority."

http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/celtic/index.html

I'm interested in knowing what the forum members here think of this and similar sites, as the author seems to speak with some reasonable authority on the matter.

The link within the page indicated by list takes you to a page where there are further links to sites about how other ancient folk clothed themselves.

[Kiltedmusiclover]

I'm interested in knowing what the forum members here think of this and similar sites, as the author seems to speak with some reasonable authority on the matter.....

Having read through the linked web sites, I will stick with Matt.
An Authority we can TRUST and Who gets facts with his history.