History: Strap and Buckle Closures?

[The Wizard of BC]

Ted,

I've been reading through you last few threads and one thought keeps popping into my mind.

You are probably thinking way to hard on this. The development of the kilt has been as varied as there have been kilt makers. I don't think you can put a date on when things happened or how a particular kilt was made.

I've seen kilts fastened with just about every type of fastening imaginable. I've seen kilts with no attached fasteners at all. They were pinned on with the large horse blanket pins. The ones we think of today as diaper style kilt pins. These were large, 5" to 6" long. Each time the kilt was put on it was pinned. This way one kilt could fit a wide range of wearers. This was often used in some military units that kept a few kilts in their stores and would issue as needed.

I've seen kilt with ties. Some ties were ribbon and some leather. Some small or narrow and some wide enough to be called straps.

I've seen buttons, hooks and eyes. Sometimes there is one type of fastener on the underapron and another fastener on the outer apron where it would show.

And I've seen all manner of leather straps with buckles. Some like want we use today and some that use one long strap fastened to the under apron only. The strap went around the back like a belt and buckled to a buckle mounted on the outer apron.

So the sort answer to your question is that there have been as many ways to fasten a kilt as there have been kilt makers. Each maker tries to find their own way of setting their kilts apart and special from another maker.
Each shop would have their special way of doing things. This would apply to the stabilizer & interfacing, the fasteners, the taper of aprons etc.

I would venture to say that what we today call "The Traditional Way" only came about fairly recently. With the production of kilts on a scale any larger than a small one or two person shop would require some form of standardization. The master or owner of the shop would set the standard so all the kilts from that shop would be the same.
Change within a shop would happen but would be slow or one change at a time to make things easier or to save some time or money.
The military, Pipe bands, and the Rental companies would have had a large part of this standardization. At one time there were four formal and many informal kilt schools. Each made and taught a different way of making a kilt. The Keith School taught a very different way than that which was taught at Thomas Gordon's where Elsie Stuehmeyer learned the trade.

Asking which is the best or the 'correct' way is about akin to asking which breed of dog or which brand of Scotch is 'correct'.

Trying to set or put a date on when a change happened is even harder.

[figheadair]

I agree with Steve about reading too much into this and in effect trying to codify a process.

Looking through my pre-1860 photos of old military and civilian kilts I can't find one with a strap and buckle. Generally they are closed with ribbon/tape ties or buttons. That doesn't mean that one might not find an example of a buckle being used by around the middle of the C19th but I suspect that they are later and that even when they did come in that there would have been a number of styles.

Just a thought but I wonder if their use coincides with the move to knife pleats and more cloth.

[figheadair]

I've seen kilts fastened with just about every type of fastening imaginable. I've seen kilts with no attached fasteners at all. They were pinned on with the large horse blanket pins. The ones we think of today as diaper style kilt pins. These were large, 5" to 6" long. Each time the kilt was put on it was pinned. This way one kilt could fit a wide range of wearers. This was often used in some military units that kept a few kilts in their stores and would issue as needed.

I remember Bill Clements, late PM of the Atholl Highlanders and a former BW soldier during the war (WWII) telling me that at that time the BW used to fasten their kilts with a 6" long steel pin that hard to be 'positioned' just right so that one could do all that was required without skewering one's crown jewels .