Great Kilts

[Jim H.]

How large does a great kilt have to be in length, and are they cheaper than a wee kilt? I know the difference, but are great kilts warmer than a wee kilt, and does anyone have comments on them?

[Dreadbelly]

Oh boy, here we go again.

Do a search for Great Kilts. You are, uh, bound to find all kinds of opinions and feelings about said garmet, as well of it's supporters and detractors.

[Jimmy Carbomb]

Great Kilts, as we know them, are merely a stretch of fabric with no tailoring. For that reason, they're MUCH less expensive.

As for weight, that's entirely up to what you're looking to "warm-up". The Great Kilt covers the shoulders, whereas the Little Kilt will concentrate on the... um... lower body.

I'm currently designing and finishing a "tailored" breacon feileadh mor. It will be a hybrid of a breacon feileadh mor and a breacon feileadh beg. I guess that makes it a feileadh-middle? The design is DONE, and is as easy to put-on as a casual kilt. This all came about because the SCA was looking for something that was not available out there. There were also a number of guys that were looking for the "full" look without the pain of the gathering. This will make it as easy as a feileadh beg.

With that, it will be as warm as a "little kilt" with the extension of the "great kilt". Depending on the fabric sources (which are near completion) the cost will put them in the casual kilt range... in wool or other.

This will be an "original" design that will in no way replace the little kilt. It's more of a challenge-and-solution to bringing the breacon feileadh mor into the modern fold. Celtic bands, pipe bands, re-enactors, SCA and individuals are already lined-up! I'll let you know more in 3 months.

[bubba]

I'd like to see a few pics of that when you get done. Sounds like a cool idea.

[Sir Robert]

After reading this I went and read up on great kilts.

For the most part a great kilt would be a rectangle 60 inches by 162 inches of wool blanket material. Most likely this would be solid brown in color for camoflage. Yes ther are paintings of the great kilt in the most outrageous tartan colours. But keep in mind that the paintings are of nobles showing off their wealth by dressing up nice.

I made a great kilt today by sewing togather two Army blankets for 67.5 by 175 inches of olive green. It is hidious to behold but it is historicly accurate.

You might want to get 10 or 13 ounce material in a pre-45 tartan. Not period but would look better.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Here's some info on the great kilt:
http://www.albanach.org/kilt.html

Robert,
You are correct that the great kilt would be worn for camoflauge, but that does not meant it would most often be a solid color. We do know that solids were *sometimes* worn in the great kilt -- we have one portrait that shows that c. 1635, but in this case it is solid red.

The camaflauge would have been tartan. In natural tones, the stripes of the tartan design would have served to break up the wearer's outline and camoflauge him, just like a tiger's stripes, or a leapord's spots. So rather than wearing tartan to be identified, people once wore tartan to be hidden!

Jimmy,
Sounds like you are doing something that the military did towards the end of the eighteenth century -- sew in the pleats of the feilidh-mhor to make it easier to put on. I'm doing the same for a client now (or will be, I should say, when the cloth comes in). Nothing new under the sun, I'm afraid!

Matt

[gmcdavid]

Jimmy,
Sounds like you are doing something that the military did towards the end of the eighteenth century -- sew in the pleats of the feilidh-mhor to make it easier to put on. I'm doing the same for a client now (or will be, I should say, when the cloth comes in). Nothing new under the sun, I'm afraid!
Matt

I did that on one of my great kilts a couple years ago. It works quite well. I also added some belt loops and a couple laces on the inside--where the inner apron buckle and strap would be on a normal kilt. That way I can align the end of the inner apron correctly. One of the belt loops is at the end of the outer apron, so I can align it accurately as well. If you are going to cheat, you might as well be thorough about it!

A minor drawback is that the thing is rather hard to store. You can't just fold it up anymore. What I do it is hang it by the belt loops in the back. This is OK, but looks a little sloppy.

Glenn

[Sir Robert]

MAC Daddy

You are the expert on kilts, period. You know much more than us mortals about kilts and tartans. But there is not much evidence on the great kilt. The paintings of nobels done in the period when the artist could see with his own eyes are our best source of information. But remember these are unlikely to be what a peasant would wear typically.

Here is what we do know:

There is a painting of at least 1 Noble in a solid red great kilt.

There is a period account of Highlander's kilts being "Brown to hide on the heath"

So based on that I beleive that a typical great kilt was a big brown blanket. Now if I wanted someone to think "Braveheart" yeah I would wear a bright colored tartan broadcloth. If I wanted to hide on the heather myself I would pick a predominantly brown tartan and so would you, but keep in mind that camoflage printed cloth was a 20th century idea.

We could argue this to death but we can NOT prove our points.

[Jimmy Carbomb]

Jimmy,
Sounds like you are doing something that the military did towards the end of the eighteenth century -- sew in the pleats of the feilidh-mhor to make it easier to put on. I'm doing the same for a client now (or will be, I should say, when the cloth comes in). Nothing new under the sun, I'm afraid!

Matt

If it was that minor of a change, then you would be correct sir! It's much more than that little sewing run, and one that will make it as easy to wear and store as a "little kilt". All the while, it will maintain the look of one that's wrapped.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Here is what we do know:

There is a painting of at least 1 Noble in a solid red great kilt.

There is a period account of Highlander's kilts being "Brown to hide on the heath"

So based on that I beleive that a typical great kilt was a big brown blanket. Now if I wanted someone to think "Braveheart" yeah I would wear a bright colored tartan broadcloth. If I wanted to hide on the heather myself I would pick a predominantly brown tartan and so would you, but keep in mind that camoflage printed cloth was a 20th century idea.

We could argue this to death but we can NOT prove our points.

It's not really that mysterious, Robert. I'm not doubting that solid color great kitls were worn. In fact, I know they were worn. What I'm saying is that they were not the norm. You are taking two isolated examples and concluding from them that the solid kilt was the norm.

This ignores all of the varied evidence that tartan was the cloth of choice for the plaid.

First of all, the quote you mention about brown being preferred to blend in with the heath, I assume is from George Buchanan's account of 1581, which says (in translation):

They delight in variegated garments, especially stripes, and their favorite colors are purple and blue. Their ancestors wore plaids of many colours, and numbers still retain this custom but the majority now in their dress prefer a dark brown, imitating nearly the leaves of the heather, that when lying upon the heath in the day, they may not be discovered by the appearance of their clothes; in these wrapped rather than covered, they brave the severest storms in the open air, and sometimes lay themselves down to sleep even in the midst of snow.

Now you can read from this that the majority of people were wearing solid brown plaids, and you can also read from this that the browns were woven in some kind of tartan pattern. He really doesn't say, though he does specifically point out that they prefer variegated striped patterns (what we would call tartan). But my point here is that he is most likely writing of the plaid worn unbelted, not the great kilt. The earliest evidence we have of the plaid being worn belted (i.e. great kilt) comes 13 years later in 1594.

Once we get into the seventeenth century, when we know for a fact that the plaid was being worn belted, every picture we have showing this, with the exception of a 1635 portrait of Campbell of Lochawe, shows the great kilt in tartan. Your conjecture is that this was simply done by the nobility or upper class, and the common man still wore solid brown. But this is not really true. Many of the portraits were of soldiers, including this one from 1631, which clearly shows tartan:
http://albanach.org/belted-plaid.jpg

And apart from paintings and woodcuts, we also have written descriptions. In 1618 John Taylor, a poet from London, described the native dress of the Highlanders. He writes, "...with a plead about their shoulders, which is a mantle of divers colours..."

William Sacheverell, Governor of the Isle of Man, in 1688 writes of the Highlanders: “The usual outward habit of both sexes is the pladd; the women’s much finer, the colours more lovely, and the squares larger than the men's and put me in mind of the ancient Picts." His description of the square patterns here indicates he is talking about tartan.

Of course there is Martin Martin, writing in 1703. “...every isle differs form each other in their fancy of making plaids, as to the Stripes in Breadth and Colours. This Humour is as different thro’ the main Land of the Highlands in so far that they who have seen those Places is able, at the first view of a Man’s Plaid, to guess the place of his residence.” Again, he is obviously describing tartan patterns here.

We also should make mention of the fact that the word "plaid" which originally was a Gaelic word for a blanket or mantle, regardless of pattern, has come to be synonymous in English with tartan -- this could only have occurred if the plaids were so regularly made in tartan pattern as to confuse the two terms. As early as 1639 we have Daniel Defoe (author of Robinson Crusoe) writing of Scottish Highland soldiers wearing stockings and short cloaks made from "a stuff they call plaid, striped across red and yellow." By "plaid" he means "tartan." This confusion would not be likely to happen if the belted plaids were most often a solid color.

So I will agree 100% that the belted plaids (great kilts) were not always tartan. They were sometimes solid. But I still have to stand firm on the historical evidence that indicates they were most often tartan -- so much so that this pattern would still be considered characteristic of Highland dress even today.

Aye,
Matt