How do leg proportions affect kilt proportions?

**Dixieman** · 23rd October 21, 05:54 PM

Kilts can go down to anywhere just below the knee to just above the knee. If you have a long torso, short legs for your height, does an above-the-knee or below-the-knee kilt look better? What if you have a short torso, long legs for your height?

I am 180.5 cm tall with an inseam of 85.5 cm. Not pants inseam; crotch-to-floor inseam. Do I have short legs? What's your height and crotch-to-floor inseam? You know, where you get a hardcover binder, shove the binder spine up your crotch, firmly against the sit bone, and using a tape measure to measure the top of the binder to the floor?

Also, what you have a big waist but very skinny calves? How does the kiltmaker make sure that it doesn't look like your kilt doesn't look like it could fit four of your legs? I know kilts flare out like an A-line skirt, but how does the kiltmaker determine how much the kilt flares out from the waist to the bottom?

**Father Bill** · 23rd October 21, 07:19 PM

It all depends on whether you’re wearing a traditonal kilt or making some kind of ‘statement’. Traditional kilts are worn at the top of the knee or possibly as low as mid knee. Anything else is both unusual and uncomfortable as it will cut the back of your leg. Length of leg is only a consideration to your kiltmaker when measuring.

**MichiganKyle** · 25th October 21, 05:30 AM

I've never heard of leg length being considered for kilt length. It's pretty much always based on getting the anatomical waist right and getting bottom to hit the knee in the right place.

**plaid preacher** · 25th October 21, 01:13 PM

Doesn't matter. A traditional kilt is measured from your natural waist (note - this is not your pants waist) to about the middle of the knee cap. Add an inch or the rise, and that is the length of your kilt. That is what makes the kilt such a versatile garment. Do consult a kiltmaker and they will guide you through the measuring process.

(oh, and btw, if it hangs below the knee, it's a skirt.

)

**Pleater** · 25th October 21, 03:13 PM

I would argue that the garments I make and wear are more kiltlike than items sold for women to wear simply due to the quality of the fabric and the care with which it is made into the pleated wrap around skirt - I put in foundation layers to take the strain of being held closed which some commercially sold kilts for men might lack.

I do of course make free with the styling and so they can vary from 24 inches to needing high heels to lift the lower edge off the floor when I wear them.

kilts do not flare out, however - it would take some drastic pressing to set them into an A line, though I am sure there are dry cleaners who have achieved it, much to the dismay of the wearer, but from the lower edge of the fell, the sewn part at the back, downwards the pleats should hang straight down, and be folded on the line of the cloth both inside and outside folds, unless the tailoring requires otherwise.
I twist the large pleats at the edge of the apron slightly - by about 1/4 of an inch - in order to make them lie correctly - it is after all where a fairly two dimensional strip of folded fabric has to accommodate a three dimensional body and although the concept of a kilt is simple in outline, in the making of it there are some tailoring skills required to make it look as though it would be something easy to make fit perfectly.

The edges of the apron do curve, but not to add a flare.

**OC Richard** · 25th October 21, 04:26 PM

Originally Posted by Pleater

Kilts do not flare out...from the lower edge of the fell, the sewn part at the back, downwards the pleats should hang straight down...

Sorry but I'll have to disagree a bit with you there.

I never realised how critical the flare was to the look of a kilt until I bought a cheap "casual" kilt that hung straight down.

It looked horrible.

Yes a proper kilt doesn't flare much, but it does flare some, and the flare is needed for the kilt to look right IMHO.

Two modern military pipers:

A Victorian gent:

A modern Pipe Band drum corps:

I purposely picked photos where men have both legs straight down, so we know it's not the angle of the legs making the kilt flare.

(Of course I understand that the flare happens with the aprons and that the pleats, in theory, hang straight down. But look at the back of the kilt of the left-hand piper in the top photo.)

**OC Richard** · 25th October 21, 04:41 PM

Originally Posted by Dixieman

If you have a long torso, short legs for your height, does an above-the-knee or below-the-knee kilt look better? What if you have a short torso, long legs for your height?

That's an interesting question which I suppose could be demonstrated by having men with various leg-to-torso ratios wear their kilts at different places on their knees. Personally I'd have to see it demonstrated to have any clue.

There is the issue of where the fell is. Seems to me that there are two measurements, from the fell up to wherever you want the top of the kilt to be, and from the fell down to wherever you want the bottom of the kilt to be. The location of the fell itself isn't a matter of taste but a matter of anatomy.

In any case, where I encounter the torso-length issue is with Highland jackets. People selling jackets and waistcoats want to give me "Long" because of my height. But "Long" looks too long on me!

I'm 6'4 but I need regular length jackets and waistcoats.

**Pleater** · 25th October 21, 06:43 PM

I think we are at cross purposes - yes the aprons are shaped and the pleats might not be quite as tightly folded at the lower edge as at the sewn edge of the fell, but it is not a flared method of construction.

Anne the Pleater

Originally Posted by OC Richard

Sorry but I'll have to disagree a bit with you there.

I never realised how critical the flare was to the look of a kilt until I bought a cheap "casual" kilt that hung straight down.

It looked horrible.

Yes a proper kilt doesn't flare much, but it does flare some, and the flare is needed for the kilt to look right IMHO.

Two modern military pipers:

A Victorian gent:

A modern Pipe Band drum corps:

I purposely picked photos where men have both legs straight down, so we know it's not the angle of the legs making the kilt flare.

(Of course I understand that the flare happens with the aprons and that the pleats, in theory, hang straight down. But look at the back of the kilt of the left-hand piper in the top photo.)

**Troglodyte** · 29th October 21, 01:27 AM

These two pictures show fairly well the shaping of the apron as it was in the mid-years of the last century.

Kilt shaping 1.jpg Kilt shaping 3.jpg

There will be a number of other essential factors in play, but these illustrate how much varience there is between the waist and bottom of the kilt, and that it is not simply an A-line or stright fanning-out to get the desired shape. According to the films, this is the first step after cutting the length of cloth.

**Pleater** · 29th October 21, 12:42 PM

It might seem I'm being a bit, or more than a bit pedantic, but the shaping of the apron doesn't actually shape the kilt by widening the hemline of the garment below the hips.
The construction of a kilt is a straight tube lower edge to hip which narrows into the waist.
The apron is shaped and wraps around the body so as to look right, but it doesn't make the garment flare out in the way that the panels of an A line skirt behave.

Anne the Pleater