Kilt Maker Disappointment

[Barb T]

For someone your size and shape I would have put in as much taper as I could have made the fabric take. Between 2.5 and 3 inches on each side. 5"-6" total.

Hi Steve

Here's another case where trad kiltmaking differs from contemporary kiltmaking. If there is no difference between the waist and hip measurement in the apron, the rest of the apron edge is straight in a trad kilt, with no flare. Otherwise, it looks really odd to have the entire fell straight and parallel to the tartan stripe and then have the apron flare abruptly below the bottom of the fell.

This actually isn't a common situation, but it would be true whenever a guy has a waist measurement bigger than his hips. A trad kilt is never made with hips smaller than waist, so you'd use the same measurement for the waist and hip, and the kilt would be basically a cylinder. If you try to put flare into the apron by making the waist smaller than the hips in the apron, you'd have to make the hips smaller than the waist across the pleats, and that wouldn't work. So, the kilt has to be a cylinder. Having flare in the apron for such a kilt just doesn't work. And, if the person is wearing his kilt correctly up around his middle (and not under the belly), it should hang pretty straight with nothing pulling to cause the first pleat to kick forward. The only problem would come with unavoidable issues of body shape. If said gentleman carries his weight "behind the counter", as they say, and has both a belly and prominent buttocks, the kilt may not hang very well, but there truly isn't anything you can do about it with the way a trad kilt is made. It's not meant to be a garment tailored to shape and is, pretty much, a legacy of being worn by in-shape soldiers with straight body shapes.

Having said this, _most_ trad kilts have a little flare in the apron, because most kilts have a waist measurement that is smaller than the hip measurement in the apron, and the curve from waist to hip is continued in "A-line" fashion to the bottom of the kilt. And, in my experience with trad kilts, it just doesn't work to put more than about 1.5" each side into the flare. If you try to put more, the apron just wants to fold in a different place.

That's the view from the trad kilt deck!

Cheers,

Barb