Knife pleated V Box pleated

[TheOfficialBren]

Father Bill, how would you describe the swish of a box pleat? I've always worn knife-pleats.

[Norbo]

Very interesting Thanks Steve for the pics they show the differences very well . .

[Father Bill]

Father Bill, how would you describe the swish of a box pleat? I've always worn knife-pleats.

Well, I've never walked behind myself to watch it move and you don't see a lot of them around to notice, but they feel very much in motion. Having said that, there's a lot less cloth so it simply can't be quite as active. That's got to be compensated some by staying away from lighter weight cloths.

[seanachie]

I own several box pleats and highly recommend them. John Hart of Keltoi makes box pleated kilts and Kingussie pleats. I would highly recommend him. Great service, good workmanship and a very knowledgeable kiltmaker. The swish is different but not a negative to me, and they still get noticed as a kilt. Most folks outside of the kilt community only recognize a kilt not the pleating style.

[Nighthawk]

Father Bill, how would you describe the swish of a box pleat? I've always worn knife-pleats.

I'll chime in an answer here- I have both a box pleated and double box pleated kilt. My box pleated kilt doesn't swing anything like a good heavy knife pleated kilt. There isn't enough weight in the fabric. However, the double box feels like it moves exactly the same as a knife pleat. I love both, and they both have their places.

[Steve Ashton]

I had a unique opportunity today to make two kilts from the same bolt of fabric.
Both are pleated to the same stripe but one is knife pleated and the other box pleated.

This should answer the question about the relative thickness of the different pleating styles.

Here is a shot of the selvedge edges of the two kilts.

[OC Richard]

The kilts of three of the five traditional kilted Scottish Highland regiments were boxpleated, and the kilts of the entire modern Scottish infantry (the Royal Regiment of Scotland) are boxpleated. Here's a Cameron Highlanders kilt





About the 'swish' or 'swing' there seems to be plenty of that in these boxpleated military kilts

https://www.flickr.com/photos/33398879@N00/6102615405/

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that Elsie Stuehmeyer said that when she was making kilts at Thomas Gordon & Son that boxpleated kilts and knifepleated kilts started out exactly the same: the same amount of fabric, the same system of reckoning the number and width of pleats; it wasn't until pretty far along in the kilt's making that the pleats were put into one configuration or the other. She demonstrated this on the kilt I was making, taking one of the pleats (which had been sewn but not pressed) and folding it into a box pleat.

I only bring this up because there seems to be an idea that boxpleated kilts have inherently less fabric in them.

[Barb T]

Steve and OC Richard have shown the two end members of box pleats. In the box pleated kilt that Steve shows, the underfold meets right in the middle of the back of the pleat. The more yardage you put into the kilt, the smaller the pleats and the bigger the underfold. I put together the picture below for Kilt Kamp last year to illustrate the point, which Matt Newsome made so nicely a number of years ago. Steve's pic illustrates the top pleating. OC Richard's illustrates the one at the bottom.

[OC Richard]

Barb that's a very interesting illustration. It seems likely to me that, if followed from top to bottom, the illustration shows the exact evolution that army kilts went through in the 19th century (starting in the early 19th century with four yards and ending it with eight yards).

What I wonder is: are there extant army kilts from various periods in the 19th century which display these various stages?

I surmise that the steady increase in yardage was driven by the repeatedly increasing sett size, which meant increasingly deeper pleats (the kilts always being pleated to the same line). I have a photo of a Waterloo era kilt with a tiny sett size, but by the late 19th century the sett sizes were huge.

Matt has photos of several of these, very interesting

http://kiltmaker.blogspot.com/2013/0...ox-pleats.html

[figheadair]

Barb that's a very interesting illustration. It seems likely to me that, if followed from top to bottom, the illustration shows the exact evolution that army kilts went through in the 19th century (starting in the early 19th century with four yards and ending it with eight yards).

What I wonder is: are there extant army kilts from various periods in the 19th century which display these various stages?

I am not aware of any military ones but there are a few civilian ones that show the development from the box to box-knife. This one is a 5 yard kilt c1830-40.