There was a thread on here recently by another kiltmaker who was doing some alteration work, and made the comment on how surprised he sometimes was at what he discovered beneath the lining in kilts from other makers.

I had a similar experience myself recently. I was asked to replace the lining on a kilt which was getting quite worn out. The label on the kilt said J. Higgins, but this was very much an older kilt, and had seen heavy wear. The lining was thread bare and coming apart from the kilt in several places.

Of course the first step in putting new lining in is to remove the old lining. When I did, this is what I found.


That's right. There was hair canvas stitched in for reinforcement on both the aprons, but NOT across the pleats, where it is truly needed.

I have seen plenty of kilts where there is no hair canvas on the aprons, especially when the kilt is a nice, heavy weight cloth. It's not really needed there.

And I would have been less surprised to find no hair canvas at all. But what shocked me was the fact that it was present in the aprons, but not across the pleats.

Now, it could well be that this kilt was altered at some point in the past, and whomever did it removed the hair canvas and neglected to put any back in. But I did not see any other signs of alteration on the kilt.

To give you an idea of what long term wearing of a kilt with no reinforcement in the pleats will do to it, I took this photo showing you the distortion in the pleats. This is the kilt just laying flat on my work table, relaxed.


Needless to say that I worked out the distortion as best I could with an iron, and my client, in addition to brand new lining, also got some hair canvas thrown in to the bargain. :-)

I share because if any DIY kiltmakers on here ever wonder just how important that hair canvas is, now you know...