Heavy Athletics, tradition and the kilt - questions

[Alan H]

As a note to all of this, Pleater...aka Anne, is quite upfront about having worn kilts all of her life, from a childhood in the UK through to the present. Yet I don't see Pleater as being in the center of any great ongoing controversy, and she's been a wonderful presence on X Marks for many years, especially in the DIY forums. Barb Tewksbury also wears kilts, now and then, even when she's not playing pipes in her band.

Ann Stewart, an absolute icon in the kiltmaking world, once wrote an article in "Threads" magazine: -- " Making a kilt: Sew a man's traditional kilt or a woman's kilt skirt" by Ann Stewart in Threads magazine, volume 33, pages 55-60, February/March 1991. Back issues may be available from Threads, 63 S. Main St., P.O. Box 5506 Newtown, CT 06470-5506.

in which she quite plainly writes that she has a "mans kilt" which she wears on occasion. She also has some kilt skirts, but ANNE STEWART owns a KILT and wears it. ..... or did, at least back in 1991. So the esteemed Anne Stewart does both of these things:

A.) recognizes that the kilt is primarily, or possibly historically, a male garment
B.) occasionally wears one, anyway

What she doesn't do is say that having garments associated with a gender is a bad thing and indicates the inherent corruption of society, or something. She doesn't try to deny the historical background of the garment. So therefore, when she chooses to wear one, she does it from an educated standpoint. There is no battle, with Anne Stewart. She recognizes the history and the gender associations, usually lets them be, and now and then, she straps on her kilt.

AND...she made it, herself. Personally, I quite like Anne Stewarts approach.

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While I put in some text about "leaving the kilt for the men" in the X-Kilt manual, I also recognize that to some degree when it's a contemporary kilt, a lot of the whole issue is semantics. After all, my friend Kathy, the guitarist in my band, wears Utilikilts. GGGP has been known to strap on a Utilikilt. Also, of course anybody can download that X-Kilt manual and make whatever they feel like, including a pink kilt with little white poodles on it, and with white lace fringe if they want..... and learn from the process, which is in large part the whole point of the manual...... a fact which sometimes gets lost amidst the obsessing during construction..