How Many Years in the Switch from Box to Knife Pleat?

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Actually, in the very early 20th century, I would make the argument that pleating to the sett was not all that common. Apparently it was just starting to come into vogue. In 1901, Ruaraidh Stuart Erskine wrote in The Kilt and How to Wear it about a recent novel form of pleating, the name of which he did not know, but he described it as "revealing the whole tartan pattern." He speaks of it as a very new thing, just starting to come into fashion.

[OC Richard]

Actually, in the very early 20th century, I would make the argument that pleating to the sett was not all that common. Apparently it was just starting to come into vogue. In 1901, Ruaraidh Stuart Erskine wrote in The Kilt and How to Wear it about a recent novel form of pleating, the name of which he did not know, but he described it as "revealing the whole tartan pattern." He speaks of it as a very new thing, just starting to come into fashion.

Very interesting!

But when that pleating pattern came in, it appears to have quickly become the norm.

I'm just now looking through my vintage catalogues:

Lawrie (no date). Kilt pleating is not mentioned. Only one illustration shows a kilt's rear. It is signed, and dated 1926, and shows a Royal Stewart kilt pleated to the tartan.

Anderson 1936. "The kilt is usually pleated to show all round the 'sett' or design." The rears of two kilts are illustrated (Black Watch and Fraser), both pleated to the tartan.

Paisley 1936. Kilt pleating is not mentioned. Only one illustration shows a kilt's rear, an Anderson kilt pleated to two alternating locations. (Interesting, in that the MacDonald kilts worn in the Canadian military are pleated this way.)

When I started wearing kilts, back in the 70s, I think the only kilts pleated to the line I saw were in the military. In the last 20 years or so pleating to the line has got more popular with civilian pipe bands, so that nowadays it's approaching 50/50. It's a common issue: there are a load of MacDonald of the Isles Hunting kilts up on Ebay now, which a pipe band ordered pleated to the line but the kiltmaker made them all to the tartan. And you sometimes see a mix of the two pleating styles within the same band.