Where do Kiltmaker's Learn Their Craft?

[Barb T]

Hi guys

Sorry to be late weighing in on this thread. I'm travelling (again..).

Many of you know that I learned kiltmaking from Elsie Scott Stuehmeyer, who apprenticed at Thomas Gordon's in Glasgow starting as a young girl of 15. Back then, kiltmakers apprenticed for _5 years_ at a reputable kiltmaker. Yikes! Elsie has literally made thousands of kilts since 1947 when she began her apprenticeship. In the last couple of decades, she has taught many people to make kilts at various "kilt camps", where interested people bring a length of tartan and make a kilt over the course of 5 days under Elsie's direction. I did that when my daughter first started Highland dance, and that's how the book evolved.

The Keith School invented certification for kiltmakers, partly, I suppose, as a business strategy. There is, in fact, no licensing requirement, as there is for practicing geologists in Canada and many of the US states. You don't need a license or certification to work as a kiltmaker.

There's also a Scottish Kiltmakers Guild that for a number of years was restricted to those who have graduated from the Keith School. The Guild now accepts members who aren't Keith School graduates, but I don't think they actively seek them out. I've corresponded with several of the guild members, and they lament the difficulty of not having a personal clientele that would allow them to make a living at kiltmaking and instead having to hire out to the big Scottish supply houses and Scottish stores, who pay them only half or less of what they would make in labor if they were to contract custom kilts directly with clients (not enough to make a living on as a kiltmaker).

I have heard (although have never confirmed this) that some Scottish supply places hire recent Asian immigrants (e.g., the Hmong, who are well know for exquisite hand work) to make kilts. The stitching quality is fantastic, but the construction is only as good as the person giving the instructions. The band kilts that we order (I don't make our band kilts - too many kilts in the same tartan - boring) are beautifully sewn, but the person (people) who make them don't understand kilts. They taper all of our kilts from the hip right to the top of the kilt, and they put darts in the front of the kilt for shaping. Because the kilts taper above the center buckle line, the smallest dimension is at the top band, not at the center buckle line, and they're impossible to buckle tightly at the waist without having them sag. Whoever is making them knows sewing but not kilts. (BTW - I did make my own band kilt and my daughter's and our drum major's so that they would be right...)

My main motivation in writing my book was to preserve the craft of proper kiltmaking. I was seeing too many kilts not made properly, and someone who wanted to make a proper trad kilt had little recourse except to learn from someone like Elsie, spend an enormous amount of time and money to go to the Keith School, or find a properly made kilt and take it apart (not cheap in itself, and you have to assume that the kilt you're taking apart is properly made). So, that's why I wrote the book.

My advice is, order from a kiltmaker whom you know and who does a good job. It's no more expensive than ordering from a kilt house because, while the kiltmaker charges you more for labor than he/she charges the kilt house, there's no middleman, so it all works out about the same.

The only thing I would add is that experience doesn't always mean much. I've known people for whom the adage "1 year of experience, 25 years in a row" could be applied to their kiltmaking. They just aren't meticulous. Every kilt looks like the first or second one they made. And I also know people whose first kilt looked good enough for prime time. I suppose that's true of most jobs. Moral: know your kiltmaker, and don't make assumptions.

And back to Riverkilt's first post in this thread. Self-taught shouldn't be held against someone. It's the quality of the product that matters. If someone is making a product that looks like a kilt should, has all the interior construction that a kilt should have (e.g., the steeking mentioned above, which isn't obvious from the outside of a kilt), and is beautifully made, who cares how he/she learned the craft??

Cheers!

Barb