early kilts with pleats in front?

[figheadair]

When the "little kilt" was introduced there wouldn't be any reason not to pleat it all around.

Richard,

I, and Bob Martin before me, make a distinction between the feileadh beag and the kilt. I known that the terms were used interchangeably in the late 18th century but it seem a useful way to differentiate between a sewn garment and one with gathered pleats, by a draw-string for example. The portrait of the MacDonald Boys shows the older boy wearing such a gathered (pleated all the way around) feileadh beag, whereas the portrait of an unidentified 73rd (MacLeod's Highlanders) Officer c.1780 clearly shows a kilt with the pleats sewn in and a flat front.

I wonder if there was a military influence which helped the "flat in front" small kilt become the 19th century standard.

It's possible insofar as the military likes to standardise things for easy of uniformity. That said, one needs to remember that the earliest evidence of a sewn kilt appeared during the Proscription era and so civilian references are rare.