To Wash or Dry Clean

[bookish]

Thanks for that. I've watched a number of Robert Maconald's videos. In this one he makes it clear that basting the pleats on a kilt pleated to the sett is a fairly simple but laborious process, but ENDS the tutorial by saying the kilt needs HORIZONTAL basting stitches as well before going off to the dry cleaners. I'm not sure why that would be. Also, I have NO idea what a kilt placed into a bathtub or a big basin where it can lie flat, with Woolite added, would look like when it comes out. Would the pleats have disappeared below the fell?.

No, the pleats will not have disappeared unless you were purposefully roughing up the kilt in the wash. I did this, and once I took the kilt out of the tub, I rolled up the kilt in towels and pressed excess water out of the kilt. I then lay it out on fresh towels to dry, and pressed the kilt afterward. I did this without basting, though that Robert MacDonald video shows steps to press after the kilt had been mishandled.

As for the additional horizontal basting, I imagine this is to keep the kilt pleats together in the dry cleaning, and to prevent any movement or offsetting of the pleats when pressed. I don't fully know what the dry cleaning process is, but I am given to understand that dry cleaning is still washed in liquid other than water by a machine.