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

[NorCalPiper]

I wonder if this is true....After the proscription laws ended and the kilt was available again, techniques in fashionable construction had advanced greatly. I wonder if by that time, the idea of sewing a kilt in knife pleats would resemble the "old, simpleton" way of pleating the garment. With French couture at an appex at this time, and the broad need for massive kilt orders and wanting to look to date, I wonder if Box Pleating was just the style of the times moving aside anything resembling the unorganized hand pleat of the belted plaid. Sort of like jeans....In the 80's when acid wash straight leg were in vogue, my friends and I would NEVER think of, or be caught dead wearing bell bottoms or boot cut. Fast forward to the late 90's, early 2000's when this style came back with an updated flair. See my point? I'm hesistant to think it was purely economics, although the updated style of box pleating would have been conveniently cheaper.

[slohairt]

I've heard this argument, but I've never really bought it. For one, the amount of cloth saved in pleating to the stripe (vs. to the sett) is nominal, to say the least.

For another, pleating the stripe pre-dates pleating to the sett by a good 100 years or more, so it is not as if pleating to the stripe was introduced as a "low cost, easy alternative" to pleating to the sett.

The earliest tailored kilts that survive to this day are military kilts from the 1790s. They contain about 4 yards of cloth (some less) and are box pleated to the stripe.

Civilian kilts from the same period were pleated to NOTHING -- to no pattern at all. So you cannot really make the argument at this point that the military used pleating to the stripe to save cloth. You can argue that it was done for uniformity, though, as pleating to a regular stripe certainly does lend a more uniform look that the random pleating that was seen in contemporary civilian kilts.

Civilian kilts adopted pleating to the stripe sometime around 1815-20 or thereabouts. And for the remainder of the nineteenth century pleating to the stripe was the norm for civilian and military kilts, whether they be box pleated or knife pleated, four yards, five yards, six yards or what have you.

I would argue that the reason pleating to the stripe was maintained by the military - as well as the older box pleating style - is that the military has a built in tendency to hold fast to tradition, much more so than civilian fashion.

Concerning the original box-pleated military kilts, I would agree that it was done for uniformity and nothing more. I'm suggesting that the military chose not to adopt the later trend of pleating to the sett for both uniformity and economics.

Sure, if a full repeat is used per pleat than the savings are nominal, maybe only 20 inches or so worth of cloth. However, by only using a half repeat per pleat the saving is considerable.

Suppose two kilts are being made. Both are made to the measurements of 33" Waist and 39" Hips" (My own measurements! ) Both are made from 18 oz. cloth in Black Watch which has an approximate repeat of 13 1/2 inches. Both kilts will also have 27 pleats. Assuming one didn't "cheat the pleats", pleating to the sett using a full repeat per pleat would use roughly 12.5 yards. (A ridiculous number to be sure, and anyone would definitely cheat the pleats.) The second kilt, pleated to the stripe, using only half repeats per pleat would only require about 6.5 yards. So, no, in this the case the savings are quite considerable.

[Bugbear]

Are there any historical examples of this pleat cheating in the military kilts?

[figheadair]

I wonder if this is true....After the proscription laws ended and the kilt was available again, techniques in fashionable construction had advanced greatly. I wonder if by that time, the idea of sewing a kilt in knife pleats would resemble the "old, simpleton" way of pleating the garment. With French couture at an appex at this time, and the broad need for massive kilt orders and wanting to look to date, I wonder if Box Pleating was just the style of the times moving aside anything resembling the unorganized hand pleat of the belted plaid. Sort of like jeans....In the 80's when acid wash straight leg were in vogue, my friends and I would NEVER think of, or be caught dead wearing bell bottoms or boot cut. Fast forward to the late 90's, early 2000's when this style came back with an updated flair. See my point? I'm hesistant to think it was purely economics, although the updated style of box pleating would have been conveniently cheaper.

You of course make the assumption that the older non-sewn feileadh mor and feileadh beag was knife pleated. There is evidence for the use of a drawstring on th former and it's entirely possible that it was also common practice on the latter in which case the knife pleat, whilst it was probably used pre-c1780, may not have been common. Sewing in the drape/loose box pleat of the drawstring garment would have 'regimented' the pleats allowing them to be set in a uniform way.

Are there any historical examples of this pleat cheating in the military kilts?

Not sure what you mean. Military kilts were always pealted to stripe.

[Bugbear]

slohairt discussed it in his post just before mine.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Concerning the original box-pleated military kilts, I would agree that it was done for uniformity and nothing more. I'm suggesting that the military chose not to adopt the later trend of pleating to the sett for both uniformity and economics.

Sure, if a full repeat is used per pleat than the savings are nominal, maybe only 20 inches or so worth of cloth. However, by only using a half repeat per pleat the saving is considerable.

Suppose two kilts are being made. Both are made to the measurements of 33" Waist and 39" Hips" (My own measurements! ) Both are made from 18 oz. cloth in Black Watch which has an approximate repeat of 13 1/2 inches. Both kilts will also have 27 pleats. Assuming one didn't "cheat the pleats", pleating to the sett using a full repeat per pleat would use roughly 12.5 yards. (A ridiculous number to be sure, and anyone would definitely cheat the pleats.) The second kilt, pleated to the stripe, using only half repeats per pleat would only require about 6.5 yards. So, no, in this the case the savings are quite considerable.

John,

That would be true only if you were bound and determined to include a full sett repeat of the tartan in every pleat when making a Black Watch kilt. I'm sure I don't have to tell you there are ways around this problem which allow for pleating to the sett, but don't require you to use the full repeat if you have a very large sett to deal with. You refer to "cheating the pleats" in your post, and even say "anyone would definitely" do this.

Otherwise, every skinny man in an ancient Campbell kilt (or Gordon, or MacKenzie, or Hunting Robertson, or MacLachlan, or MacNab, or Fraser of Lovat, Murray of Atholl, etc.) who wanted it pleated to sett would have to pay an absurd amount for his kilt and would end up walking around in over 12 yards of tartan, per your math.

We all know this is not the case. And certainly army tailors of the nineteenth century were no less clever than kilt makers today. If there was a desire to have regimental kilts pleated to the sett, they could have easily accomplished this while using the same amount of cloth as before.

So I still maintain that the main reason they stayed true to pleating to the stripe was tradition, not economics. The whole argument that pleating to the stripe "saves cloth" I believe is simply one more Highland dress myth.

BTW, I've made box pleated kilts pleated to the sett from as little as four yards of cloth, and knife pleated kilts to the sett from as little as five.

[slohairt]

Matt,

Yes, the twelve-and-a-half yard monster I suggested is just a hypothetical example. (Wouldn't that be fun to make? ) Anyone who wanted a kilt pleated to the sett using such a large pattern (like Black Watch) would realistically have to settle for one of two options:

1) Fewer pleats (say fifteen or seventeen) with a wider reveal but uniform depth throughout the kilt.

2) "Cheating the Pleats". This would be used to maintain the high number of pleats (27) I suggested in my example. However, some elements in the tartan don't repeat themselves so there would not be a uniformity of pleat depth. Every few pleats would require using the full repeat of the sett. Sure, this would drastically reduce the kilt's overall yardage from the aforementioned twelve-and-a-half yards, but you would still need about eight yards to accomplish this. Eight yards is still a lot more than six-and-a-half, especially when dealing with many kilts being made from the same bolt of tartan.

The army is nothing if not frugal and in situations like the Great War, where there was a high 'turnover' of kilts, economy of cloth would become an issue fairly quickly. Almost every detail of a military kilt indicates economy of cloth: no apron fringe, small apron facings, non-tartan waistbands and buckle tabs. (The latter two also make alteration easier.)

Yes, I've made traditional box-pleated and low-yardage knife-pleated kilts to the sett as well, but I'm referring to military kilts that 'require' a high number of pleats. So I still maintain that it was done for both tradition and economics.

[Bugbear]

Perhaps I should have stated my question differently.

Does anyone know of a kilt, perhaps in a museum, made in that time period that has the cheating of the pleats slohairt is discussing?

I am talking about a physical example of tailoring from the eighteen-hundreds, and not conjecture about what might have been done.

If that doesn't make sense, I've got problems again, and it's time for me to walk away from this thread.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

All of the kilts I have ever seen from the 1800's have been pleated to stripe. (Excluding the ones from the very early 19th cent. pleated to no pattern).

[Bugbear]

All of the kilts I have ever seen from the 1800's have been pleated to stripe. (Excluding the ones from the very early 19th cent. pleated to no pattern).

Matt, I'm sorry, it's my problem, and I don't know what to do about it. I feel like an idiot at this point.

I'm going to have to take that as meaning that slohairt's "cheating the pleats" is not pleating to the stripe, and there are no examples of "cheating the pleats" from that time period in existence, to your knowledge.

slohairt seems to be saying that "cheating the pleats" is a form of pleating to the stripe, and that is why it is driving me nuts when both you and figheadair answer my question with "they pleated to the stripe."

I was not asking that question from my point of view, I was asking about the two apparently different ways of pleating to the stripe, and if there were kilts from that time that showed the "cheating" method of pleating.


I'm out.