It will never look like an 8 yd kilt, but that wouldn't bother me. Most of my kilts aren't either. Only my plain black one has that much yardage.

For me the bottom line is that you can always tell because with knife pleating the pleats run in the opposite direction from a man's kilt. Merely converting it to fasten the other way won't change that. Even my son, who has never worn a kilt, noticed that on a guy at the RenFest. If he noticed that this guy's pleats ran in the wrong direction ...