the Short Modern Kilt

[Tobus]

Those kilts might have been made to fit the man but the shirts wouldn't. So the shorter, slimmer guy will be wearing the same 'standard issue' shirt as the taller, larger guy (maybe a size or two different but it doesn't affect the pockets much)

This is one issue that really bothers me as a shorter man (5'-7"). Even when I am wearing shirts that are well-fitted to my body size, they do not make any adjustment for the breast pockets. They are the same size pockets as larger shirts, and they don't appear to locate the pockets with any thought to the fact that a shorter person is wearing the shirt. It's like they use a standard offset from the shoulder seam, regardless of shirt size. In other words, they don't scale all the parts of the shirt down proportionally. The result is that pockets which should be up on my chest end up reaching all the way down to my belly. And when wearing a kilt at proper height, I end up looking like the shorter officer in that photo, with my pockets at the top of my kilt. Or in some cases, even being slightly covered up by the kilt. For this reason, I have to be very selective about the shirts I choose to wear with the kilt. I mostly opt for no pockets at all, or have a narrow range of shirts I'll wear with the kilt.

[MichiganKyle]

I ordered my last two casual kilts at 25" long. I wear then at my natural waist, which for me actually puts the top of the kilt above my bellybutton. I've only got about 3" between the top of my hips and the bottom of my ribcage, so I don't have a lot of wiggle room to adjust the height. With that length, the bottom of the kilt is right in the middle of my kneecaps.

My first kilt was an XL Sport Kilt, which ended up being *way* too big for me (had to have it tailored immediately after I got it), but also a not insignificant amount too short - I went with "standard" length, which for XL is apparently 22.5". This ended up being quite a bit above my kneecap and was clearly too short when I sat down. I went with that length because I didn't know where the top of the kilt would sit, so when I measured myself for it, that length seemed about right.

Now, granted, I'm a little high-waisted, but that's a 2.5" difference. Again, I originally thought that 22.5" was about right based on measuring myself, but the width of an XL Sport Kilt matched my measurements as well, which means I was measuring lower than my anatomical waist. But since I had no experience with it before, that was my best understanding of how to measure, resulting in drastically wrong results. There's enough body shape variation that I can't say either one should be "standard", but I do think there should be a bit more education on (1) where kilts are worn most comfortably and why, and (2) how to properly measure that before people buy a kilt.

[Kiltsnquilts]

This is one issue that really bothers me as a shorter man (5'-7"). Even when I am wearing shirts that are well-fitted to my body size, they do not make any adjustment for the breast pockets. They are the same size pockets as larger shirts, and they don't appear to locate the pockets with any thought to the fact that a shorter person is wearing the shirt. It's like they use a standard offset from the shoulder seam, regardless of shirt size. In other words, they don't scale all the parts of the shirt down proportionally. The result is that pockets which should be up on my chest end up reaching all the way down to my belly. And when wearing a kilt at proper height, I end up looking like the shorter officer in that photo, with my pockets at the top of my kilt. Or in some cases, even being slightly covered up by the kilt. For this reason, I have to be very selective about the shirts I choose to wear with the kilt. I mostly opt for no pockets at all, or have a narrow range of shirts I'll wear with the kilt.

Yes I agree with you. Even as a dressmaker I know that pocket sizes rarely change within a pattern which seems crazy. Even more so for a guys shirt!