Your first experiance with a kilt.

[ABG0819]

We spend a lot of time talking about introducing others to kilting in a postitive light, but I'd like to hear your stories about your introduction to kilting. Many of you I know have been wearing kilts for many years and some of you all of your lives but if you are like me you have only been kilting as an adult.

The first time I ever saw someone in person wearing a kilt was at Raleigh/Durham International Airport waiting to board a plane to Scotland. It was my senior year in high school and as a graduation/everything else gift my father and I spent a week in Scotland. Though I was fairly young (17) my first reaction was not one of humor or scorn but awe. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen, and still do. It was a great trip into the wilds of the Scottish highlands, we ate, drank, and loved life for a short time until we had to return home, but even years later I remember that nameless man in his purple kilt (I have no idea what tartan it was), and it was at least a small part of the reason I am kilted now.

Graham

[xman]

Some years ago, more than I care to count really, I had the opportunity to play Malcolm in a production of Macbeth in Edmonton AB. I was costumed in a DND Black Watch kilt which was too long, but incredibly comfortable. The jones never left me and a few years ago I started the search. Now I'm kiltmaking maniac.

[Ryan Ross]

Hah, I can't believe you posted this thread today, as I was just thinking of posting the same thing myself! Reason being:

Nine years ago yesterday, I recieved my first kilt as a graduation present from my parents- a tank in the Ross Hunting (it's seen in my avatar, though it has almost two yards less in it now than it did then). Now, I had planned on ordering a kilt with my graduation money...in fact, I was planning on ordering it any day and was SOOOOOO excited. Now my mom is fairly crafty (by which I mean a veritable super-ninja), and she presented me with a nice simple brown kilt belt, a pair of black hose, and a pair of dark green garters- to go with the kilt I planned to order, she said; she said she didn't get a sporran because she wanted me to pick that out myself. I was pumped like you wouldn't believe! Then, her and dad told me they had one more present for me. If I had woken up in the morning with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't have been more surprized!

They told me to sit down before I opened it, so I did. As I removed the paper from the very large gift bag, I knew immediately what it was; I was measured by Matt a few months before, just in case, and mom had kept the measurements and learned about what tartan I wanted, in what color scheme, and how I wanted it pleated (to stripe) just from listening to me talk and plan! @#$%!!!!! It was EXACTLY what I wanted. Fit like a dream. I was on top of the friggin' world!

So now, today, I celebrate nine years from the first time I wore a kilt in public. After I graduated, in the afternoon, my family and I went out for lunch at an Italian restaurant, and I went kilted. I felt strangely at home in it, didn't even get a single comment on that first outing, I don't believe, and have been kilting up with extreme regularity ever since.

So that's my story.

[Mickey]

My dad was a cop and an uncle was a firefighter, so I had occasionally seen pipers as a kid, and I always loved bagpipe music. In my USMC graduation, a Canadien drum and pipe unit played, and I thought that was awesome. But I had never seen anyone in a kilt that wasn’t in full piping attire.

Then one weekend night, while I was in the service, sitting at a table in my usual bar I ordered another scotch (Chivas Regal, I believe I was swilling at the time) when a booming voice from behind me said “Thas naugh rail whisky lad! Gegh wit me far a rail drank”. I turned to see a giant of a man, with a huge white handlebar mustache, in full kilted dress. Turned out he was a retired regimental commander or something like that, in from Scotland for his daughter’s wedding and wanted to hit a real bar after the reception. We hung out for many hours, talking about service stuff while he schooled me in the world of single malts. I have never been able to get his image out of my head and how he struck me as one of the coolest, most impressive and confident guys I had ever met, and that I was in awe at how strikingly well he was dressed. I thought, “someday I’d love to look like that”. That was the only time I had ever saw a set of clothes that I felt put my dress blues to shame. (And let me tell you, the way all of the women that night all but collapsed in sweating heaps at his feet sure didn’t hurt the impression he made).

Years after that, my now wife occasionally mentioned that I should really get a kilt. Seeing that the nice handmade kilts were costing several hundred dollars, I could never bring myself to do it (The suit I got married in didn’t top out at $100). Plus the fact that I had absolutely no clue as to how to wear a kilt, and the very few people I saw actually wearing kilts were pretty much young clowns with green hair dressed for shock value, made me swear to never become one of “those guys”.

Then I came across this place, started learning way too much for my own good, and stumbled into a Scot/Irish store that sold kilts and all the proper accessories. That and immediate and intense pressure from the wife pushed me over the edge. Picked up a kilt, and some accessories, spent the next day all over town in it, and have been hooked ever since, and so is the rest of the family.

Now if I can just find my way into a dress jacket to a bar where a young Marine is drinking bad hootch, I will be able to pass on the favors that a big Scottish commander gave to me long ago.

[ctbuchanan]

Great topic. MANY years ago when I was a teen my older brother (11 years my senior) returned from a trip to Scotland to visit family with a tank in the Ancient Buchanan. Odd thing is my mother was born in Scotland only coming to the US after WWII but I don't ever recall much talk of kilts and tartans until he came back with that Buchanan. I was dumbstruck. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen and I couldn't learn enough about the tartan and the kilt. A few years later I got to wear it to a nearby Scottish Games and I was hooked. Now on my second kilt although with my personality I went for the brighter colors of the Modern Buchanan.

[Macman]

Graham, what a wonderful gift from your dad!
I grew up seeing kilts in parades as far back as I can remember. My grandad and dad had both worn kilts in the army and cadets, respectively, so when I went to join the reserve army at sixteen, it was natural that I chose the kilted unit. That was forty years ago. I bought my own kilt when I was about nineteen.

[Woot22]

The first time I saw a piper kilted in person was at my great uncles funeral and I was still pretty young but it certainly made an impression on me. Around the same time my brother bought a CD of Gordon Highlander pipes and drum music which I couldn't stop listening to.
It was not until I joined the Army and was stationed in Germany of all places that I wore the kilt for the first time. I discovered a couple of Army buddies of mine were as keenly interested in their families Scottish heritage as I was and we started talking about getting kilts. There was a Scottish shop not far from where we were all stationed called "Der Schottenladen" and we used to go there almost every weekend. After awhile we all pulled the trigger and ordered kilts that were made by Locharran in Scotland. We all wore them around Germany a few times and went to a few parties in them but when I look back, aside from getting proper 8 yard heavy weight made to measure kilts, we were a collective kilt DON'T picture. We thought we looked pretty awesome though.
I really only wear the kilt to specific events such as highland games and with work and traveling have not worn one since the summer of 2009. This year is no better unfortunately but perhaps next year I will be able to make some games again. Also I have been wanting to go to a Burns Supper but have never made it to one as of yet. Plan on going to Scotland again with in the next year or so, perhaps that will be the next best opportunity for me to wear the kilt again.

[dutchy kilted]

I'm sure I saw pipe bands, etc, but really don't remember having much contact with anyone kilted until a very hot day at the Celtic Fling at Mount Hope about 10 years ago. I saw, bought and wore a black Amerikilt that day since it looked so much cooler and comfortable than the shorts I was wearing.

Since it was in fact cooler (in many ways) and so comfortable I started looking for more kilts and learning more about the kilt (mainly on XMTS.) And so, an addiction begins ...

Thanks for taking me back!

[cruiser348]

I grew up seeing pictures of my great-grandfather kilted. That portion of my family moved to the states in the late 1920's and he wore kilts to formal events until his death in the 1960's. Not including seeing pipe bands in parades my first real life kilt experience was in the 1980's when my grandparents had a party for their 60th wedding anniversary and one of my uncles came to the party wearing a kilt. After that I began telling my parents that I would like to have a kilt. They talked about getting me one for a graduation present, but the cost for something they knew I would rarely have the chance to wear was just to high. Finally about a year and a half ago I was at a festival with my now fiancee and she suggested I should go ahead and buy one from one of the vendors there. Little did she know the fire she has lit under me which now has me plotting and saving for a proper made to measure kilt.

[Rob, ClanMacMillan, NM]

Many, many years ago I was planting a garden in Marietta, Georgia with my parents (I was 11 or 12 at the time) and dug up a silver cross (fortunately with no body attached). The cross, it turned out later, was made on Iona in Scotland. Thus began my love affair with Things Scottish.

Fast forward many years to the mid-nineties when my father passed away. I had not known him too well as he and my mother had gotten divorced when I was but a year old. My aunt sent me the family histories shortly thereafter. I was amazed to find out that the love of Things Scottish was apparently genetic as I had quite a bit of Scottish ancestry - mostly MacMillan and associated septs.

In early 2002 (I believe) I went to a High Desert Pipes and Drums concert/fundraiser here (they were off to Scotland for competition). There was a raffle at $1 per ticket and the grand prize was a custom made kilt by Kathy Lare. I put all the cash in my pockets into the raffle ($7) and low and behold - won the grand prize.

A few months later, I was wearing a 16oz tank in MacMillan Ancient. I can not begin to describe the "right-ness" of the feeling.

Rob