Quote Originally Posted by figheadair View Post
Double Plaids - I have some difficulty with the practical application of doubling cloth and to my mind it seems impractical and illogical. One has to be careful in interpreting the historical accuracy of portraits. Firstly one needs to remember that the artist was painting a form of dress that was completely foreign to them and the frequently get elements wrong, especially the tartan bits. Secondly, most of the portraits were produced as a form of social statement and so the 'costume' was sometimes arranged to reference an ancient style, often classical, so as to suggest a level of education and/or social standing. I know of no contemporary description of cloth being doubled and in the case of a draw-string plaid, I can't see how it would work.
Thank you for taking the time to give input to this thread, Peter.

As for the practical application, to my mind doubling the cloth could be considered both practical and logical. Doubling the cloth makes it much easier to lay out and pleat on the ground. For a 6 yard plaid, assuming you are not pleating the aprons, you have to pleat about 5 yards of it. If you first double the cloth, you only need to pleat two yards of it, or about 6 pleats. When doubled, the cloth provides better weather protection than when in a single layer. The aprons are four layers thick, and when the upper portion is drawn up as a cloak, it is two layers thick instead of one.

I'm not saying all belted plaids were doubled, I suspect not, but I do think there is the intriguing possibility that at least some were.

I rather wish I had not sold my 6 yards of double width. I would happily have done a bit of 'living archaeology' experimentation to try out which configuration works best 'in the field'. As for the Macgregor plaid, I'd love to find the time to recreate it with cheap dust sheets to show you exactly how it would work. I think if you saw it you'd 'get it'.

As for the portrait of William Cunning, Piper to Lord Grant, 1715, yes it's a portrait and could be factually incorrect, but it shows the material to be apparently doubled in two areas as shown below-

Grant piper big highlight.jpg

As for descriptions, the best we have is " The belted plaid, which was generally double, or in two folds..." as posted above. This description seems to come from 'The Character, Manners and present State of the Highlanders of Scotland; With Details of The Military Service of The Highland Regiments', by Major-General David Stewart, dated 1822. Page 79. He appears to be recounting tales from the second half of the 18th century. He states that his grandfather always "wore the highland garb".