Great Kilt Tartans

[McGrowl]

Hello everybody,

Just a quick question about wearing a Great Kilt in our modern era: Is it generally acceptable to wear a Great Kilt in whatever tartan you want (e.g. Isle of Skye, Irvine Ancient, etc.) or is there a list of a handful of tartans that were historically worn as Great Kilts that would be better to adhere to?

Total noob question, please don’t tear into me.

[figheadair]

It rather depends what you are trying to achieve. The great kilt (feileadh mor) is an historic garment and so unless one is trying to replicate the original look exactly, then anything else is a compromise and your choice of tartan is exactly that, your choice.

If you want to go down the historical route then yes, there are surviving tartans that would be appropriate although many would need to be especially woven. The cloth was also woven in a particular way which one would need to replicate, more here - Joined Plaids -Settings and Construction and Traditional selvedge decoration on tartan cloth.

[Orvis]

Great comments, Peter, to which I might also add that if one is going for the historic look, one would also want to use single-width 16-oz tartan of an historic off-set pattern (Wilson's color palette) and join it to create a double-width plaid of about four yards length. If the tartan cloth is source from Elliots or Dalgliesh (sp?), figure a cost of about USD $500. If one is just looking to wear a belted plaid, any tartan in double width will do.