Kingussie Pleating: Anyone have one?

[figheadair]

The Robertson tartan this kilt was made from is not the one normally seen today, but has a white line added to the sett. More info here in the National Register.

I’ve only ever seen a couple poor quality black and white pictures of the original outfit but they appear to show some extra lines in the sett. This may be mis-dyeing or irregular fading (less likely I feel) that shows up in the pictures or it may have been another variation of the Robertson setting. Without better images there’s only one way to be certain which is why the outfit is on my list to examine. Unfortunately it’s in storage elsewhere now and not readily accessible at Am Fasgadh but I’m hoping to examine it next year at some point.

For those in the US, you can see a replica of this original kilt in the Scottish Tartans Museum in Franklin. The cloth was hand woven by Peter MacDonald and the kilt made by Bob Martin.

That cloth was woven to replicate the original and so the white stripe is silk. It's a technique that Wilsons used in some of their earlier cloth but it seems to have gone out of fashion after about 1830 probably because of the expense and the increasing demand made it less practical to weave. The effect is outstanding but it's not something that can easily be done today because of the way commercial cloth is finished.