Why the rise in kilt popularity?

[GreenDragon]

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.

I'm all for celebrating my ancestry - Irish and, i'm pretty sure, Scottish. I see all the guys my age totally lost in the hip-hop / pop culture around them that they've lost any sense of their people and their heritage. It kinda pains me. I want to instill in my kids the pride of their heritage so they know where their people come from and the struggles that our people overcame so we could live in a great country.

[Bugbear]

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]

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!]

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]

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.

[Tetley]

For me it was discomfort. I've always had a problem with trousers. I do a great deal of fast walking and energetic dancing and trousers chafe and make me hot and sweaty in places I'd rather not be chafed, hot and sweaty.

I was bemoaning this to a kilted dancer in June and he persuaded me to try a kilt, he wears non-tartan kilt full time and that was the start. Once my first kilt arrived at the end of June, a Utilikilt, I stopped wearing trousers.

[Mipi]

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

[Mr. Kilt]

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

Pretty much my response as well. Without the internet I may have never tried a kilt.

[werewolves]

For me it was a combination of "modern" kilts and the internet. I always thought kilts were cool, but I'm not Scottish. It wasn't until I saw a guy in a UK that I thought "hey, I could wear one of those". But it was reading about the experiences of others on the internet that gave me the courage to do it.

[KellyCH]

Consider the steps into wearing the kilt. First you have to think about it, then you have to actually obtain a kilt, then you have to wear it outside and discover that nothing bad whatsoever will happen when you do. Next, you'll probably end up with a dozen or so kilts, wear them every day, and be immediately fingered in the neighbourhood as "the guy in the kilt".

Now ponder the gap between steps 1 (think about it) and 2 (obtain a kilt). If you're not sure how step 3 (wearing it outside) is going to go, how likely is it that you're going to plonk down US$500 or more on something that you may wear only once and then retreat in humiliation and derision in public? But, on the other hand, if you're only out a tenth of that to give it a shot, then it's a lot more likely you'll try it and discover, as almost all of us do, that wearing a kilt in public is largely a non-event and that most of the interactions with strangers are positive and sometimes delightful.

My first kilt was actually hand-sewn by me (and hardly authentic), but something I could afford which looked good enough to try out in public. So, I tried it out. Nothing happened. So then it was all Bear Kilts, Stillwater, Utilikilts, and the rest, including some more authentic interpretations, but in synthetics because my skin doesn't support wool.

Look, most people don't have any idea what will happen when they venture out in a kilt. We can say as much as we wish from experience, "nothing", but people have to try it for themselves to believe it. Fine--isn't it great that maybe 100 times as many people can discover that for fifty bucks off the rack than for ten times that for a custom order that takes a month or more to arrive?