Just to put the whole recent topic in a different light, I thought I'd make a new post.

I see much grousing on the forum board about those cheap, shoddy imitation "kilt" things being hocked for $40-$50. They're awful, goes the line. Lip Service kilts...oh, we rant about 'em. Pieces of junk, and the models aren't even wearing 'em right and so on.

Ten posts down we have discussion on how to bring the "kilt" mainstream.

Ladies and gentlemen, I can go down to Mervy's and buy a pair of Levi Strauss blue jeans (which are made in Indonesia, BTW) for $26. I can buy a pair of Dockers (also made in Indonesia by the company that owns Levi's) for $29. It costs me, or anybody else, less than thirty bucks to put a decently constructed, well-accepted garment about my loins that I can wear anywhere I want.

If I go to a custom Italian men's shop or even just the Macy's Menswear or Nordstroms I can buy myself one damn fine pair of tailored wool slacks, high quality enough to wear on my wedding day and will last me for years, for what it costs to buy the least expensive Bear Kilt.

Guys, you can't have it both ways. If a kilt costs hundred of dollars, then it'll never be daywear-mainstream. Regular guys can't and won't spend hundreds of dollars on everyday clothes. Your regular guy CAN spend forty bucks on a kilt to wear "around"...but not three hundred. Yet we holler in disgust when someone markets a "kilt" that is actually priced somewhere near what a normal person would actually pay for something they'd wear every day.

The only way to get the kilt to go mainstream is to get the price down to about $40 or less. How on earth can you make something really high-quality in the USA or Canada or the UK for $40? It can't be done, not at the price of basic labour today. Certainly everyone here is behind the idea of making a living wage for your work, huh? OK, then the only way to make a kilt that is priced for the mainstream is to cut the constuction time, use less expensive fabric and market them in high volume. This means the quality has to go down. See "Lip Service". The other option is to move the construction facilities offshore to where labor costs are a tenth of what they are here in the First World. See "McKilts".

How on earth USA Kilts and Pittsburgh kilts market a self-made, high quality product for around $100 is beyond me. I can't imagine how on earth they're making a living at it. Do the math! Nobody is getting rich, here. I cannot conceive how Stillwater kilts produces a basic product that sells for under $50. They HAVE to be made offshore.


You can't have both...high quality and mainstream-low price. Sorry, no gorgeous 8 yard wool kilts going mainstream for $40 on sale at Macy's. MAC Newsome isn't putting his 4-yard box pleated kilts out there for $39.99, but until he does, a high quality kilt will never be "mainstream".

So I say.... IMHO... enjoy the kilt for what it is. Wear it in whatever tartan, plain twill, multicolored combination you like. Buy kilts from Bear and Rocky and Utilitkilts and Pittsburgh and Freedom...

....And Mac Newsome and Kinloch Andersen and Celtic Croft and your local kiltmaker and enjoy them for what they are and forget worrying about "mainstream".