I'd be all for it. Might even buy a couple. I envision something like a Utilikilt knockoff or a Sportkilt knockoff at Wal-Mart. I don't see why not. Probably going to be a while, but I think it will happen.

I don't see any attempt to copy a "tank" in cheaper materials. Wal-Mart doesn't carry even the cheap tuxedos at any location I have seen (not saying it doesn't happen in big cities around prom times, just that I have not seen it). Seems to me that the casual kilts would be the likely product at WM, not the good kilts.

Frankly, it isn't that hard to make a kilt-like garment out of a light material with elastic in the waist and an overlap on the front. If you don't stitch down the pleats it only takes the time hem the bottom edge, pleat a long rectangle, and sew on a waistband. Not very sophisticated, not very difficult, but the difference would be as obvious as the difference between a cheap pair of sweatpants and a pair of tailored wool slacks.

My wife wears an off-the-rack slack that she has semi-tailored (pegged to contour to her legs better) and has gotten comments about how nice they look. Without the modifications, they look like any pair of pants. The difference would be the same with kilts, I expect. Everyone would be used to the bunched elastic back (I still hate that aspect of SKs) and the pleats that are open all the way up to the waist. Then, they'd see someone in a wool tank and know that somehow this guy knows how to wear a kilt.

I don't think I'd own a nice suit if I didn't own any other trousers. I suspect a lot of folks would start wearing kilts and decide to get a nice one for formal wear and dress-up occasions after finding that it isn't hard or odd to wear a kilt.

Long way around saying that whether or not I would want to buy a lot of them, I'd like to see them accepted enough that you could buy them at retail shops. I don't think it would change my habits at all.

-Patrick