Gonna get slammed for this but here goes...

[Pleater]

I make my own clothes and I can only just afford kilts - the time is the first consideration, the amount and quality of the fabric is the next.

However, upping the quality of what I wear has made considerable differences to my wardrobe - I have discarded things not good enough to be worn with a kilt and made things specifically to be either a good colour match for a specific kilt or to be right to put with kilts.

Having lifted my standards, I now find that I still have all my kilts as they have proven far more adaptable, repairable, and resistant to the more destructive environments I tend to venture into than my previous wardrobe.

Just at the moment I am wearing what was my first kilt - though it has been remade smaller and in a different style - remade several times now. The colours are a little faded from much washing and sunlight and there are a couple of small holes, but I would actually miss wearing it so I will probably, at some time remake it so as to remove the damaged edge and shuffle the pleats so the fading is hiden.

Kilts are special, adding in a particular tartan with personal associations makes them even more desirable and then wearing them with other people in the same situation seems to add yet another layer of attachment.

Some things are just worth the price.

[davedove]

Some shops have managed to make kilts cheaper, but they have to compromise on different aspects. They have made the kilts cheaper by:

1. Using cheaper materials.
2. Machine sewing.
3. Making standard sizes only.
4. Getting the work done overseas using cheap labor.
5. Using less material.

If a person wants a full 8 yard kilt, hand sewn to custom measurements out of worsted wool, you are going to have to pay the price.

[Pour1Malt]

ya get whit a pay fur...

a guid kilt is no expensive- it will last way past yur lifetime...

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I just did a quick Google search for Scottish Ambulance Serivce tartan, and the only web site I saw that showed it as available was kiltstore.net, for $71.60 for 16 oz weight cloth. However, this does not mean it is a stock tartan. Kiltstore.net pretty much has the whole international tartan index on their web site and if the tartan you are looking for is not one of the few hundred that are stock supported by the major Scottish woolen mills, they will have it custom run for you, just like Barb or I (or many other kiltmakers) can do. We just don't have fancy web sites which list all the tartans out by name. :-)

Notice they say about this tartan, "Custom Woven range. Made to order by our own small traditional weavers in the Scottish borders." (They also say "hand woven" which is incorrect, as they get it from the same Selkirk mill that Barb and I order custom cloth from -- it's superb cloth, but not hand woven!)

In any case, no matter how you slice it, getting a kilt made from a custom woven tartan is going to be more expensive from the get go because the cloth is more expensive. Unlike a tartan such as MacDonald or Campbell that the mill can run off a hundred meters at a time and know it will sell, in the case of a custom run tartan, they are producing just a few meters just for a single kilt order -- which as Barb points out, generates a lot of added cost.

One way to keep the cost down is to reduce the yardage. Who says that a kilt must contain 8 yards of material? I make a lot of four yard box pleated kilts in custom tartans for this very reason. For special run material, I charge $480 for the kilt (that's cloth and labor). Yes, it's more expensive than a typical four yard kilt. But it's also still less than a typical 8 yard kilt, which will easily cost you between $500 and $600. So it's a way that people can get a kilt in the custom tartan that they want, while keeping the cost within an average kilt budget.

Kilts are hand tailored, made to measure clothing. They are going to cost money, and there is just no way around that -- well, there is, and that is to mass produce the kilts and sell them off the rack, but this will severely limit your tartan choice. Look at the few tartans offered by Stillwater kilts, and compare that to the thousands of tartans available in traditional hand sewn kilts.

We are used to buying industricla made clothing in stock sizes these days, so our persepctive is skewed. Try researching what a completely hand sewn and made to measure suit will cost you, and then compare that to the cost of the kilt. It makes the cost of the kilt seem cheap!

[Howard Clark]

Or truly hand made anything else.

I was discussing an ongoing project yesterday with one of my friends who polishes and mounts katana that I make. The project he is working on at present involves fittings that are over $4K, just for the little bits of metal at the ends of the tsuka (handle) and the tsuba (hand guard), and the menuki (little metal bits that go under the silk cord wrap on the handle). All told, eight pieces, and you can hold them all in one open hand. It's about the skilled labor.

I think the custom kilt makers work for remarkably little money, myself.

I'm still not wearing one of Matt's creations to the shop for forging though, a man's got to have limits, after all.

[Joel]

I have made a few 'traditional' kilts for my own personal wear (not of traditional materials, just of traditional construction)...and as I finished my last one (a 7 yard knife pleat), I said to myself that I highly respected the professional kiltmakers for what they do. It's not to say a hard labour, but it's - I don't quite have the words to describe what it's like. About anyone can make a kilt...but! it's a very special skill to be able to make a kilt and make one right. It's almost like a labour of love.

Now, materials are expensive: thread, needles, the different types of cloth used in construction...it all adds up. And I agree with Pour1Malt, a well made kilt will last a lifetime and will outlast any other garment in your closet.

So, when you think about it, it's a lifelong investment that pays itself off by the joy and pride you get out of it.

Cheers.

[Riverkilt]

Ahhh yes, so many sides to this coin....

Back in May I had an email from Kathy Lare saying she "had" to raise her prices a bit, she wasn't making it financially. Not just the exchange rate's effect on fabric, the increasing shipping rates both inbound and outbound.

She is a member of the Kiltmaker's Guild in Scotland and found her hand sewn kilts were the lowest priced of ANY kiltmaker in the guild.

She said she had a prospective customer tell her that her hand sewn kilts must be cheaply made because her prices were so low compared to other hand sewn kiltmakers.

I don't know about you, but I'd never consider the expense of kiltmaking school, then coming home to sit for hours hand sewing a kilt for no hourly wage/profit for doing so. Then have prospective customers question my quality because I wasn't paying attention to business expenses and hadn't kept pace with my pricing.

Having grown up in, and spent my early adult years in, the cut and sew trade I know well about 144 deep fabric on huge cutting tables. Today I'm guessing most pattern layouts are computerized for maximum fabric use. When the cut pieces are sent down the production line of sewing machines to be assembled I'd be curious to know the ages and wages and length of workday of the sewing machine operators in whatever country these women's skirts are made these days.

And, I wonder just how long one of those women's skirts will last...probably not handed down through the generations as a fine kilt will be.

You can have any two of price, service, or quality.

And welcome aboard. This place can use all the medics we can get.

Ron

[Barb T]

For instance, your flashes, as you point out are $25 for essentially scrap material and 10 min work.

Adam

Maybe you can make a decent-looking set of flashes and garters in 10 minutes, but I can't.

Barb

[The Wizard of BC]

I'm going to second Barb's statement that perhaps some people can make what could be called flashes and garters in 10 min. That someone is not me either.

Do a search here for making flashes. There are four or five very good pictorial tutorials on how it's done. Barb has done one, I have, the FHCAG has done one or two. Now try doing the same thing yourself. I bet you can't finish in less than 1 hour. I'm getting pretty good at doing flashes and my average time is 55 to 65 min. for a set.

[Howard Clark]

We in the "first world" have become so used to things being inexpensive that we fail to consider how they got to be so.

I really like the Buddhist principle of mindfulness. No matter what you are doing, or thinking of, be mindful of how it came to be. In the case of a quality hand made item such as a kilt, you are looking at many hours of hard won experience, and care. And many hours of work. Anything can be done quickly and inexpensively, but not "done well" at the same time.

I can only imagine that trousers that were actually made to measure to fit me, personally, might fit a great deal better than the ones off the rack, and likely be a good bit more comfortable too. I'll probably never know, I'd rather buy another kilt.