Is tweed your speed?

[mull]

This is one I bought from Bookster, I'm not 100% sure about it but its really nice quality

What are you not sure about? It's fabulous!

[pascs]

What are you not sure about? It's fabulous!

it looks great on but just a bit louder than my usual kilt attire

and for $100 was too good an opportunity to pass up because I'm sure I'll never see another like it in my size

[creagdhubh]

I love it!!!

[Tobus]

It's a bold statement, but I think I like it too!

I'm wondering if it's a conversion, though. Based on the low position of the buttons and the pockets, it looks like it was cut down from a longer jacket. My guess would be that they used the cut-off material for the Crail sleeve patches and epaulettes. All in all, though, it makes for a nice kilt jacket!

[creagdhubh]

It's a bold statement, but I think I like it too!

I'm wondering if it's a conversion, though. Based on the low position of the buttons and the pockets, it looks like it was cut down from a longer jacket. My guess would be that they used the cut-off material for the Crail sleeve patches and epaulettes. All in all, though, it makes for a nice kilt jacket!

Good observation, Tobus.

[McMurdo]

It's a bold statement, but I think I like it too!

I'm wondering if it's a conversion, though. Based on the low position of the buttons and the pockets, it looks like it was cut down from a longer jacket. My guess would be that they used the cut-off material for the Crail sleeve patches and epaulettes. All in all, though, it makes for a nice kilt jacket!

I was thinking the same thing, though on a conversion wouldn't the lapels come lower? At any rate I think it's a wonderful tweed and I'd wear it anywhere.

[Tobus]

I was thinking the same thing, though on a conversion wouldn't the lapels come lower?

I won't profess to say for sure (I'm just guessing here!), but it does look like the lapels are slightly lower than I'm used to seeing on my kilt jackets. I might even venture to guess that they folded the lapel slightly higher up than it originally was and added or moved a button, although I don't see any signs of buttons having been moved from a previous position (i.e. I don't see any old closed-up button holes). It's hard to say.

If it is a conversion, it's a fine job. Like I said, the main thing that made me think conversion was the low pockets and low front buttons, mainly evidenced by the drastic cut-away at the front bottom. But heck, it could be an original kilt jacket that was just made this way. If we can't tell for sure that it was a conversion, then it was done well if it is!

[McMurdo]

Tobus
I agree if this is indeed a conversion it is a very good one. My initial feeling was that this was a conversion was due to the low pockets as well, however the lapel position seem to be counter to that. Nonetheless it is a wonderful jacket and interesting tweed that I would be glad to wear.

[pascs]

Tobus
I agree if this is indeed a conversion it is a very good one. My initial feeling was that this was a conversion was due to the low pockets as well, however the lapel position seem to be counter to that. Nonetheless it is a wonderful jacket and interesting tweed that I would be glad to wear.

It was a picture of you wearing a similar tweed that pushed me into buying it

I would say the jacket might well be a conversion as there are a couple of places where the stitching isnt the same as the rest of the jacket, initially I thought it had been some repair work but I think its most likely to have been a conversion.

It's a bold statement, but I think I like it too!

Thats exactly what I thought too when i bought it from ebay, one of those will I wont I moments

Anyway.... its mine now so if I decide I dont like it or wear it enough then I can always put it back up on ebay

[MacLowlife]

When I am evaluating jackets for conversion, I try to look at where the pockets are relative to the sleeve cuff. When Thompson wrote his book in 1979, three button jackets had gone out of style again and he was able to observe that they went begging on the racks in consignment and thrift shops. There are mysteries of tailoring and geometry that make some lapels easily re-shaped and others impossible to reform. Width is important, but button stance is even more so.

Currently fashionable jackets sometimes have three things going for them for conversion: higher pockets ( especially on English-cut jackets), high button stance, and shorter skirts to begin with. Those who can wear a 38 or a 40 (i.e.m those who are sized like Asian men) may find that Asian influenced sport coats ( or some from Ralph Lauren) are cut much shorter than the traditional American sport or suit coat, which usually ends around the wearer's cupped fingers- several inches below the sleeve cuff.

I try to think in terms of fractions rather than inches. and of alignment with body parts, like the sleeve-to-skirt rule. If I can half the existing distance between the pocket flap and the hem and it still looks reasonable, I consider that a good candidate. If the remaining space is narrower than the flap, I think about looking for another jacket.

Here is an interesting test and a good illustration of how the eye follows proportion. A woman in a sleeveless turtleneck, especially one with vertical ribbing, will often appear to have large breasts- and they will seem to be lower on her torso. I think this comes about because the eye gauges from the top of the neckline instead of from the shoulder. But if you will look carefully, nearly all breasts are situated between two fifths (down) and halfway between the shoulder and the elbow.

Taking this idea back to the kilt jacket ( come along, lads) we can see that jackets with pocket flaps somewhere around the elbow or the top of the kilt seem to be the best proportioned. The line of the pocket flaps is visually connected by the belt. And the elbow is pretty close to the midpoint on the sleeve.

So, when looking at a kilt jacket, we see that the skirt is shorter than the sleeve by maybe a fourth and the pockets sit another fourth of the way up, or roughly halfway between the hem and the underarm. The well known picture of Alan Cumming shows how Howie Nicholsby prefers a slightly longer silhouette and places his pockets closer to the low slung "modern waist".

I am still refining some of these theories, but I would encourage X Markers to apply them and test them- maybe even improve them. Just be careful about the turtleneck rule, though...