Band Kit Bag/Frequent Travel

[The Wizard of BC]

I don't travel as much as a band but when I do travel I, of course, pack my kilts.

The basis of how I pack comes from how I hang my kilts.

Yes, you can spend a lot of money on someone's idea of a "Kilt Hanger" but I think I have found a much more cost effective alternative.

I own a kilt shop. We have all sorts of kilt hanging on our racks. Everything from 16oz wool to 12oz Poly/Rayon. We were constantly having to pick the heavy kilts off the floor and were having problems with wrinkles and pleat distortion.

One day I stumbled on the solution we use today.

This hanging method uses almost any, inexpensive clip style hanger. You can often get these for free from department stores. You can even use the wooden pants hangers you probably already have in your closet.

1) Open the kilt all the way.



2) Fold the kilt in half bringing the two aprons together.



3) Put one hanger on the aprons and another on the pleats.



4) Then fold the kilt in half again.



You can see that the kilt is fully supported wrinkle free.

Each hanger has to go over only two layers of kilt.



The kilt in these photos is a full, 8 yard, 16oz wool kilt that weighs 4 pounds. It has never fallen off the hangers when hung this way.

If I am travelling and need to pack the kilt I simply take it off the hangers, fold it in half one more time and pack it along with the hangers.



When I get where I am going I unpack the kilt, put it back on the hangers and if there are any wrinkles I hang it in the bathroom when I take my morning shower.

Wool is an incredible fabric. It is very wrinkle resistant and just the small amount of heat and vapor in the bathroom will let any wrinkles fall right back out.


The very worse thing someone can do is hang a kilt by the loops that you find sewn into the waistband of some kilts. It is my belief that these were intended for temporarily hanging a kilt like on the back of the door of a public washroom.

If you hang a kilt for any length of time by these loops the kilt fabric will become distorted. After time this distortion becomes permanent.



The second worse thing is to pack a kilt tightly. This forces wrinkles into the fabric by a method very similar to the old school "Cold Pressing" Where the pleats of a kilt were set with a board and weights, like from a couple of books, then left overnight.

I have tried rolling and have tried the Nylon stocking trick. I have tried almost every commercially available kilt bag and kilt carrier. In the end this simple hanging system has proven to be the most reliable and, by far, the least expensive.