Why the rise in kilt popularity?

**Sionnach** · 5th October 08, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by Southern Breeze

The Internet.

I'll give the internet credit for helping me find this forum, but my interest and desire to have and wear a kilt piqued a few years ago when a MacPherson showed up at our dojo in a utilikilt, even prior to that my oldest son and I had discussed it- but funding wasn't right at those times.

The first time kilted was a moment of unsurpassing comfort.

I will say that this forum has given me the impetus to walk bravely in public more often.

**Phogfan86** · 5th October 08, 07:56 PM

The internet has also made it so much easier to get a kilt -- be it a $30 economy kilt or a $400 model from Rocky or a $1,200 custom weave. I'm in Kansas. If not for the internet, I would've had absolutely no clue what to do if you'd have told me to buy a kilt.

And I'll take the the comment about the increase in interest in genealogy a step further: The Celtic tradition is one that belongs to the entire human family. There has been a renaissance in all things Celtic because people are looking for something to connect to.

Author Esther DeWaal puts it best for me: The Celtic tradition "is about something in you that’s older than you are."

**Bugbear** · 5th October 08, 08:04 PM

I still think it has to do with all the pleats...

**DWFII** · 5th October 08, 08:05 PM

I suspect that it is because our society...esp. here in the USA...is so fragmented (some would say "diverse") that almost everybody is looking for some kind of community to identify with.

Some choose politics, some choose sports, some choose their ancestry. Personally, I find the latter as good as...maybe better than...any other reason.

Sometimes it's hard to even see the USA as a "country" in an older sense of the word much less a cohesive society or culture. But when you wear the kilt you become part of a close...metaphorically close if not in actual fact...community that not only has a long and storied, and sometimes glorious, history but one that you have a legitimate right to identify with because of ancestry and blood.

In a way, wearing the kilt re-establishes those family bonds that we Americans left behind, devalued...and sometimes literally wiped all traces of from the family Bible...and gives us a sense of belonging and uniqueness and identity that slips away from us, almost unknowing, amidst the rush hour crowds.

**Bugbear** · 5th October 08, 08:23 PM

Well... The tartan can have a lot to do with it, but not all tartans are clan or family; not all tartan is even Scottish; not even all kilts are Scottish style kilts... Plenty of solid color and tweed kilts out there! But all of them have pleats.

I'm sticking with the pleat answer.

**The_Black_Knight** · 5th October 08, 08:27 PM

The girls love it. I noticed more girls (teens) looking at me, noticing and talking to me while wearing a kilt then ever before. I wear my kilt to thursday night market place, and all of a sudden girls i never would have thought would talk to me are asking my number. coincidence? i think not!

**FreeDon!** · 5th October 08, 09:08 PM

I think it's due to the sheer awesomeness of it all.

I think the internet has been a huge influence. I saw a Utilikilt for the first time online, and was hooked (although it took about 3 years before I actually ordered one). Hard to dispute the influence that contemporary kilt designs must have as well. I didn't have any real desire to wear a traditional kilt (well, not until after I had 3 UK's), but I was immediately drawn to the UK.

Don

**JRB** · 5th October 08, 11:27 PM

I'll throw in another vote for the internet. In this day and age it's as simple as a few stabs at a keyboard and a few clicks of a mouse to buy a kilt and to find and discuss kilt culture with others.

**Mipi** · 5th October 08, 11:59 PM

I would say Southern Breeze is right. The are many reasons to wear a kilt, but Internet actually gave a push.

**Jock Scot** · 6th October 08, 12:28 AM

Speaking as a Scot in Scotland I really can't see what all the fuss is about when it comes to the kilt. Perhaps it is because we have a "national confidance" to wear,or not, the kilt when and where we choose and also without the added worry of all this carry on, over what colour matches with your hose,tie,girlfriend's frock,or should the kilt be worn at this height or that height.
I mean no offence here,but until I came to this website I had no idea that the rest of the world get so wound up over wearing the kilt.