Pre-Buckle Kilts?

[EndTheTrendNow]

I love history and was looking for a kilt that was made in the early 1940's, but I found one that was made in the late 1940's. Apparently it doesn't have the 2/3 buckles that normally appear on kilts these days.

What are your thoughts on these types of non buckle kilts? Was it normal not to have buckles? This would be my first Kilt purchase.

Cheers

[sailortats]

check out the "Army" kilts being made by John at Keltoi (see banner above).
Hopefully he is almost done making my new kilt that is a reproduction of an early 1900s Army kilt. Instead of buckles it will have two cloth ties on the right hip only.

[OC Richard]

Well into the 20th century some military kilts lacked buckles, but were pinned.

I don't know when straps and buckles were introduced, but it seems that at least in the first half of the 19th century pinning kilts was standard.

The trouble is that vintage photos of soldiers showing the top of the kilt are very rare, due to soldiers nearly always wearing jackets.

Here is one, a Gordon Highlander. You can see how tall a full-width kilt is on a shorter man (all army kilts were full width regardless of the wearer's height). You can see that there's no buckle on the wearer's left where one might expect it. This doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't buckles on the other side, because many old kilts don't have any fastening for the inner apron though they have buckles for the outer apron.



Also note that the straps and buckles on traditional Scottish military kilts are quite different than the straps and buckles used on 20th century civilian kilts. The military buckles are stamped out of sheet steel, feel small and flimsy, have two prongs, and are painted black. They're held to the kilt with strange black-coated canvas stuff.

Here's a Cameron Highlanders kilt well showing the distinctive military buckles, and a number of other military attributes (high rise, grass-green binding, lack of fringe, and the box pleats which appeared on 3 of the 5 old kilted regiments).

[The Wizard of BC]

What we think of today as the norm - One strap and buckle on the left going through a hole in the kilt, and two straps and buckles on the right. - Has not been the norm for very long.

Over the past 200 years there have been hundreds of thousands of kiltmakers who have made a whole lot of kilts. While those making kilts for the military wanted all the kilts for a particular unit to be the same as in 'uniform', there was no standard between units. One unit had kilts made one way and another unit had kilts made another way.

In the civilian world the market drove innovation just as it does today. Everyone looks for that thing which will make their product stand out from the rest.

I have had kilts come into my shop with just about every fastening method you can imagine. Buttons, ribbon ties, pins, straps in just about every configuration under the sun.
I've had kilts with one long strap on the under apron which goes through a hole on the left, all the way around the back and is fastened to a single buckle on the outer apron edge.
I've seen hooks and eyes with no visible fasteners on the outside of the kilt.

One kilt came in with 22 buttons at the waist. 6 of these were for braces (suspenders) and the rest were a sort of adjustability system. The button holes for these buttons were on strips of webbing.

And every combination of fasteners imaginable. Straps on the right - buttons on the left. / Ties on the right - hooks and eyes on the left. /

And some old military kilts with no fasteners at all. A second, narrow belt was worn under the tunic to hold up the kilt.

I even had one very old military kilt that came in with the matching tunic. This kilt had large brass 'hooks' on the kilt which would hook into matching brass 'eyes' sewn into the inside of the tunic. Sort of like the hooks you see on the outside of the tunic to keep the belt in place.

So, no, what we think of as the norm today has not always been so.

Among all those kiltmakers some of them been true geniuses. Talented people all with some really innovative ideas. We seem to view the kilt as some sort of thing which exists all on its own. We don't often think of the person who made it and view that person as a talented seamstress or tailor with sometimes years of experience behind them. These folks are trying to create the best product they are capable of making. And trying to sell their product to earn a living.
We often seem to view the kilt as if there were just one standard and/or one kiltmaker. Remember, until "The Art of Kiltmaking" there was no written method of how to make a kilt. And TAoK presents just one way, taught to one person, by one other person, who learned at just one company. Right down the street at another company, a totally different method was taught.

Until TAoK no one would ever write down their way of making a kilt. It could be copied - or heaven forbid, improved upon. You just did not give away your trade secrets.

I'm sure Barb has heard it just as I have. "Why would you create a book? No one will ever come to you for a kilt. They will just make it themselves using what you wrote."

[Pleater]

I'm just trying to think of what I have used so far - the kilts I had when I was young were hand me downs and the leather straps were all cracked up, so my mum put on buttons and loops instead.

I usually wear a belt with the camo kilts, and they have belt loops - four on the pleats and one on the edge of the apron. Pulled tight they keep the under apron in place. I did mean to put a strip of Velcro on them, but it never got done as it did not seem necessary.

I have a couple of long heavy kilts which really need to be held on, so they have a buckle and strap at the ends of both the aprons.

Lighter kilts which get washed a lot have no permanent fastenings and are held on with large safety pins - they have a strong internal waistband which can take the strain.

A variation I have not tried is to have two straps on the over apron as it has never seemed necessary, even when I made a fairly high waisted style.

The type of fastening doesn't seem to make much difference really, as long as whatever you use is firmly anchored so it doesn't distort the fabric. I have used seat belt strapping, military webbing, various straps from my store of such things, so as to reinforce the waist and then any strap or buckle is sewn right through all the layers. As I remove them for washing it would not be possible to sew them on leaving the outermost layer loose - but as I have a large store of different coloured threads I can find one which is all but invisible.

I think that you can feel free to improvise any sort of method to secure your kilt.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Steve Weston]

We use a combination of fasteners in our utility kilts, but then we are not traditional kilt makers. We use an adjustable snap button system at the waist on both the left and right side, giving the wearer the ability to adjust up or down one size each way. Buy a 40" waist, your kilt adjusts to a 38" or 42". We also include heavy duty belt loops on the waist. And we use the same fabric (#10-15 oz Duck Cloth or 10 oz Duck Cloth - dependent on customer's fabric weight preference) as that of the kilt to make the apron closures, with a double fork military style buckle. However, we deal only in modern utility kilts but at some point in the future would like to start working in traditional fare.