Cheap PV kilt - probably not.

[Nemuragh]

I had never worn a kilt although my cousins, with whom I lived for a short time in my childhood, all used to wear them to church on Sunday (and to Boy Scouts, as I remember). My father gave his only kilt away before I was born. After WW2 ended and he was demobbed, he gave the kilt to his great army friend a Canadian of Scottish extraction who lived in Vancouver. Sadly, they never met again; he must have been a good friend to be given my dad’s only, presumably expensive, kilt! In any case, what I am trying to say is that there wasn’t a great tradition of kilt wearing in my family.

At some point, I discovered what the original kilt was and how it was worn and I thought that if ever I ‘needed’ to wear a kilt that was what I would wear and resolved that one day I ought to try it. I met a guy who was wearing one when I went to a fiddling weekend school with Charlie Mckerron at the Gaelic College at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. It was an impressive garment. This lad was learning to speak Gaelic by almost total immersion for (I think) 6 months; he called his kilt a “Feileadh”, the Feileadh Mòr.

Recently, someone exclaimed their disbelief that I had never worn a kilt so I thought to myself it was time to try the Feileadh but after reading up on it, I decided that it was too unwieldy for me to the extent that I was unlikely to ever wear it except once to try it out.

However, I had become intrigued by the ordinary, conventional kilt and resolved to buy a relatively cheap PV kilt to find out if I liked it. I have bought one but, although it has some admirable qualities, I don’t think it fits me very well and I don’t think I will ever wear it - but that’s another story.

John

[Father Bill]

Welcome to the "Great Rabble"!

[Liam]

Welcome from Western Canada 🇨🇦!

[lschwartz]

Welcome John!!!

Sorry to hear your kilt was sized correctly for you. What about it doesn't "fit" correctly? Is it too long? Is the waist the wrong size?

Larry

[Nemuragh]

Welcome John!!!

Sorry to hear your kilt was sized correctly for you. What about it doesn't "fit" correctly? Is it too long? Is the waist the wrong size?

Larry

Hi,

Thanks, Larry.

I think the waist is probably too small. I took my own waist measurement a number of times and it seemed to be about 31”. The kilt is supposed to be 30-32 (the smallest size on offer from this seller). However, even with the buckles at their tightest, the back seems to drop down. I’ve been on a lo-carb diet for 3 years and my backside is more or less flat; I think there’s nothing there for the kilt to hang on and the back is heavy, as you will know. It turns out that if I cinch the tape measure tighter (really quite tight) I can get a measurement of 29”. I didn’t expect that I would need to wear the kilt so tightly. This is beyond what I can do with the buckles, incidentally. I’m not very taken with the way the thing hangs, either. It’s a bit stage curtainy.

Thanks for asking,

John

[John_Carrick]

I once shrank to 145 lbs and my kilt would not stay on, but I'm sure a made to measure garment of quality will delight you and you will be very comfortable.
Welcome to the forum.

[Pleater]

My kilts have to support themselves across some 4 inches, centre back and I have used various methods to provide the required infrastructure. My longest and heaviest kilts have seat belt material at their waists as it it very stable.
Wool fabric can be deformed with time and pressure - heat and moisture speed the process, so no matter what the quality of the fabric, it is unable to resist deforming, that is why there is such a thing as tailoring as opposed to dressmaking.
Making any kilt without a sturdy underpinning is just setting up for failure at some point in the future.

Having a soft centre, I make the outer waistline about two inches larger across the pleats and an inch more on the top of the aprons than the reinforcement to which it will be joined and ease it in as it is attached, so when I tighten the waist there is enough fabric to accommodate the effects of the cinching in. Before I realised just how much pressure was required to hold a heavy kilt I was making the waist band too large and the pleats just below it were overstretched even then.
Those with firmer waist might not require so much ease, but it should be considered as it makes quite a difference to the appearance of the top few inches of the fell to have it kept unstretched.