RRS kilt

[Tobus]

Anyhow I was amazed when she said that partway through the kiltmaking process knifepleated and boxpleated kilts were the same. She picked up a kilt that a student was stitching the pleats, and with her fingers she turned the pleats into box pleats.

Indeed. Military box pleats are pretty much just like knife pleats except for the outer "rolled" or "turned-back" portion. As can be seen below on my QOH kilt, the rest of the pleats lay like normal knife pleats in relation to each other. But the part of the knife pleat that would normally be visible in the finished kilt is folded back on itself. This obviously will affect the way the pleats are measured out and stitched together at the fell area, and requires a different method of assembly. In my quest to find someone to make me a new military box pleated kilt, most kiltmakers said no. Too much of a pain in the rear.

It's that "rolled" portion of the pleats that is difficult to tame. As can be seen in my photo, they often don't want to lie flat with the rest of the pleats. There's no adjacent material to keep them wanting to lie down past that last crease. And as one walks, sits, etc., and the material moves in relation to itself, those folds tend to want to open up a little bit and curl outward. So a MPB kilt does take some additional maintenance to keep the pleats tidy, but I love the appearance of this pleating style.

[OC Richard]

In my quest to find someone to make me a new military box pleated kilt, most kiltmakers said no.

I was on that Quest in 2006, I really wanted a Cameron Highlanders style kilt.

I was either told no, or quoted uber high prices. There was a kiltmaker in Scotland, he said he was an ex-army kiltmaker, but he charged over a thousand pounds for an 8 yard boxpleated kilt!

The Quest eventually led to North Carolina kiltmaker Wanda MacSwain, who had a negligible extra charge for military boxpleats. I never ended up ordering that Cameron Highlanders kilt! I had to get a kilt to match our band kilts instead, because the band was going to Scotland in 2007 and didn't have a kilt that fit me. In the end I never found out what Wanda MacSwain military boxpleated kilts looks like.