The end of the visit-kilt-shops tale was Thursday when myself and a couple band-mates took the train to Kilmarnock to visit the McCallum bagpipe factory.
(And it's not a workshop, it's a proper factory, with rows of CNC machines and a couple robots helping the numerous craftsmen and technicians turn out, it's said, around 50 sets of pipes a week, more than some one-man pipe makers do in a year.)
We were given a fascinating and thorough tour of the factory, and ended up in the McCallum showroom which incorporates Ayrshire Kilt Shop.
There were racks of the same House of Edgar and Gaelic Themes kilt jackets with the same 400-pound prices.
But my eye was drawn to a small rack of odd jackets, and in examining these I found an Argyll in my size made in a lovely heavy dark grey tweed with loads of texture and character, so different from the off-the-peg "Arrochar" charcoal tweeds I'd seen in all the other shops.
It fit perfectly, and when I asked the price I was amazed to hear "70 pounds". I bought it immediately, and wore it all day at the Worlds on Saturday.
The only proper labels were ones stating "Made in Britain" and "48R".
Oddly, the care instructions label was hand-written on a sewn-in plain white satin tag.
And there was a sewn-in paper tag stating "McCallum J. McGregor" which suggests that a Mr McGregor never picked up his lovely jacket.
Last edited by OC Richard; 19th August 24 at 03:17 PM.
Proud Mountaineer from the Highlands of West Virginia; son of the Revolution and Civil War; first Europeans on the Guyandotte
Bookmarks