Tweed jacket opinion

[OC Richard]

My first tweed kilt jacket, back in the 70s, was a thrift store/charity shop conversion I did myself.

There are two problems you run into, seems to me:

1) the lower of the two buttonholes is placed right where a kilt jacket would swoop away (assuming we're talking a traditional kilt jacket cut). I've seen people sew shut that buttonhole, making it almost disappear. Or, they make the front of the jacket angle back at a steep enough angle to avoid the buttonhole, but the result doesn't have the classic elegant cut.

2) the lower front pockets are usually placed rather lower than they are on a traditional kilt jacket. I have seen blazers with those pockets higher and more to the side which make better candidates for conversion. Or, if you can find a blazer with patch pockets these sometimes can be removed cleanly and you can place new pockets (or nonfunctional flaps if you wish) in the correct traditional locations.

Here you can see how a traditional kilt jacket swoops away from the single fastening button; though this is a current Ebay thing it has the classic cut. Note the elegant balance between the portion above the button and the portion below the button.



This is to be contrasted with the sort of shape people usually get from a conversion. Note how the fact that the button is so much lower changes the balance



I think if you started out with a three-button jacket (where the top button is higher than on a two-button jacket) the front would look more like a traditional kilt jacket.