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There is nothing that compares to the look, and swish of the pleats, of a Traditional Kilt. But oh, the cost and care needed. In the 1990’s a few kilt companies began to ask if the Traditional Kilt was truly practical in today’s world. They began to experiment with some of the man-made fibres available and with alternates to the skilled hand labour involved. The products of this experimentation are known as Casual Style Kilts. Casual Style Kiltmakers want to produce a kilt as close to a traditional kilt as is possible. Their goal is to produce a kilt that at first glance can stand next to a Traditional and not be noticed as out of place. The first experiments where made with alternate fabrics to Wool. Most notably among the fibres they started using was a blend of Polyester and Rayon known as Poly/Viscous or P/V for short. P/V can be woven in Tartan patterns and the dyes used produce bright and vibrant colors that don’t fade. It can also be pressed at much lower temperatures than Wool and the creases produced are virtually permanent. P/V is also very wrinkle resistant and machine washable. A perfect fabric you may say. Well, yes. With a drape and swish that rivals Wool, P/V is a very good, less costly alternative to Wool. However, the Holy Grail of P/V kilts currently is a heavy weight fabric. Most P/V today is woven in a relatively light 10 or 10.5 oz. per linear yard weight. It should be possible to be woven in a heavier weight but no one seems to be doing it. It is the hope of the kilt world that soon a weaver will begin to produce P/V in weights of 13 and 16 oz. The next thing kiltmakers began to experiment with is machine sewing their kilts. It is the hand stitching that makes up the bulk of the labour cost of a Traditional kilt. Using a sewing machine has allowed some kiltmakers to produce a kilt in under 10 or 11 man-hours. This is half the time it takes a competent Traditional kiltmaker. There are some differences in the look of a machine sewn kilt. The stitching is always visible when using a machine. To some purists this is unacceptable. The phrase goes though, “you get what you pay for” and at just a couple of hundred dollars a machine sewn kilt is the only kilt some men can afford. The machine sewing which goes through all the layers and folds of the fabric and the thinner quality of P/V allow the Casual kiltmaker to skip the costly reinforcements needed in a Traditional kilt. Many are made with a minimal liner or no liner at all. The Casual Style Kilt has proven to be a good, cost effective, alternative to a Traditional without sacrificing to look. To most people seeing a Casual Style Kilt for the first time they may not be able to tell the difference from a Traditional. The downside of the Casual Style Kilt is that because it does not require the skilled craftsmanship, almost anyone with a sewing machine can make one. Some shops in Scotland and the internet are full of low cost kilts. Many are made of fabrics like acrylic (think leisure suits). Many of these kilts are manufactured in Pakistan and the orient where labour costs are minimal. There are a few manufacturers who, while they contract the manufacture of their product overseas, still care about quality, but there are enough shoddily made kilts out there today that the prospective kilt buyer needs to be aware of what his $99.95 is buying. Since the introduction of the first Casuals there have been many manufacturers who have taken up this style of kilt. Three of these companies, USA Kilts of Philadelphia, PA., Stillwater Kilts of Minneapolis, MN., (who subcontract their kilts in Pakistan and are available in standard sizes and 24” length only), and Bear Kilts of Vancouver, BC, have taken great pride in the kilts they make. They produce quality, Casual Style Kilts, and have been responsible for putting more men in kilts than anyone else.
Contemporary Style Kilts
In 1991 a new style of kilt was developed by Howie Nicklesby of 21st Century Kilts in Edinburgh. His idea was to create a more fashionable alternative to a Traditional Kilt. Once the rules were broken with kilts made from Camouflage, Leather, and Denim a flood of new companies began developing kilts that a few years before would have been looked on with raised eyebrows. This new style of kilt, known as a Contemporary Style Kilt attempts to retain the spirit of the Traditional Kilt in that it is built in much the traditional way, and retains the hallmarks of the Traditional styling. But where they diverge is in the addition of pockets and the use of solid coloured, machine washable fabrics. Why no one before thought to put pockets in kilts is a mystery to me. Perhaps it is tradition. I personally dislike a sporran. It seems that my keys always get tangled up with my cell phone and I never seem to be able to find my money without digging around and finally end up dumping everything out. A Contemporary Style Kilt will almost always have Traditional style pleats, be they knife, or box. The aprons are near full width and tapered just as on a Traditional. But some makers have begun to experiment with alternate fastening systems. There are now fasteners of Velcro, buttons, plastic quick-disconnect buckles and many others. To a Contemporary Kiltmaker there is no hard and fast rule that kilts must be made from Wool or Tartan? Kilts have always had a military history, so you can now find kilts made from Camouflage. Fabrics of Polyester/Cotton blends like those found in men’s slacks offer machine washability and they can be treated with Teflon to resist soil and stains. They also resist wrinkles well. For day-to-day wear in the office and for hikes in the woods the Contemporary Style Kilt is changing the entire world of kilts and dragging it kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. Today, a man’s garment without pockets is unheard of. Most of us would be lost without pockets. Why should kilts be any different? Today the Contemporary Kilt can have a wide array of pockets. There are side pockets like those found in trousers. There are Cargo Pockets, hidden pockets to keep your passport safe and special pockets for tools, and pocket watches. If properly made and custom fit to the wearer a Contemporary Style Kilt can have pleat swish which rivals a Traditional. Most Contemporary Kilts are also made of just as much fabric. However most fabrics in a Contemporary cost a fraction of what Tartan Wool costs. So you would think they would cost far less than a Traditional. It’s true that a Contemporary Kilt will normally cost about half of what you would spend on a Traditional, but what you save in fabric costs is lost in the labour costs to design and sew a Contemporary that looks good and has pleats that lay straight without curling. Even though a Contemporary is machine sewn it takes just as long to make one as it does to hand sew a Traditional. This is due partly to the added time to make the pockets and partly due to the added time to top stitch the edges of each pleat crease. Cotton and Poly/Cotton fabrics will not hold a crease as well or as long as Wool because repeated machine washing stresses the fabric and the creases are soon lost. Very soon you would need to baste the pleats back into position and press the creases back in, so most Contemporary kiltmakers top stitch the pleats. These fabrics also do not have the clean selvedge edge that Tartan Wool does so a turned-over hem is almost always needed. Cottons and Poly/Cottons are stiffer and less malleable fabrics than Wool. Where in a Traditional you can create curved lines and form the fabric into shape with steam, in Contemporary kilts the shape must be built into the kilt with the stitching. I make Contemporary Style Kilts for a living so I’m rather biased but I’m also an Engineer so I believe that if care is taken in the design and pride taken in the construction, a Contemporary Kilt can have the classic lines of a “real” kilt, can have almost as nice a swish, and can provide the wearer with a garment that can be worn every day, at the office or in the bush. It’s in this day-to-day wear that the Contemporary Kilts really make sense. What if you have no Scottish Heritage? What if you can’t afford the Traditional Kilt with all the accessories that go with it? What if you want to wear your kilt in conditions which would destroy your expensive Wool kilt? The answers to these questions are what the Contemporary kiltmakers are trying to provide. Robert Pell of R-Kilts, located in Ontario, Canada, Amerikilt, from PA, and myself at Freedom Kilts are some of the Contemporary kiltmakers who have begun to provide our customers with this next, natural development of the kilt.
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