Hear, Hear, Panache!

As I've said three times in this thread, so far, there is a place for the $70 kilt. Heck, there's a place for the $37.50 kilt. What prompted this thread was my observation in a couple of nearly-simultaneous threads on the board, from three separate people, of posts more-or-less accusing custom kiltmakers of charging outrageous prices. I wrote the original two posts ot illustrate the kind of labor it takes to make a kilt, what the costs were, and where those stiff prices come from. It seemed to me that we've become so accustomed to Stillwater prices and the Frugal Corner prices, that somehow we've (not ALL of us!) lost sight of what goes into hand-making a kilt. The "yardstick" developed by pricing the Frugal Corners kilts is not really applicable to judging fairness of pricing on a custom-made wool kilt.

Along the way, this discussion has turned into a really illuminating investigation into fabric sources, kiltmaking, the time requirements for kiltmaking and so on. I hope that X-markers now have an even more thorough appreciation of why a custom, hand-sewn kilt costs what it does....or why Rock's "premier" kilts, machine sewn but with care taken to hide the stitching, costs what it does.

The only step that can be done to REALLY get the idea across is for those who buy kilts to sit down and make one. Nothing teaches respect for true craftsmanship (craftswomanship!) as to try it yourself. Besides, there's nothing quite like buying the material, buying th ebook,and setting yourself down and DOING it...

And you know what? I'm wearing, right now as I type this, the very first handmade wool kilt that I ever stitched up myself. It took me 47 hours of work to make it...worth every single minute of it.