Best material, in your experience, for work kilt

[Improv1]

Hello rabble! I am looking at getting a work kilt, and want one that will:

• Be suitable for cutting the lawn, working in the shop, getting sweat and dirt on it.
• Will hold its pleats.
• Is reasonably easy to keep looking good.

All of my kilts are dress quality, and I try not to get them too messy (a pint splash, sweat from dancing, rain) and they are holding up well. I just don't want to spend a lot of money on an 8 yard wool for work.
Thanks in advance!

[Tobus]

Are you talking about tartan material, or "other" material?

[The Wizard of BC]

I would guess that over the past 14 years I have tried just about every fabric I could get my hands on.

I assume by work kilt, that you are asking about non-Tartan fabrics so I will leave those until last.

I would rate the absolute worse fabric that I have ever worked with to be a light nylon similar to that used in boxing ring shorts. Far too light weight and revealing. And never, ever allow it to get wet. It becomes transparent.

Second worse in my opinion would be leather. It is heavy and requires a special sewing machine with a walking foot to sew it. Once you put a needle hole in, it is there to stay. It requires special cleaning methods. Leather is stiff and does not swish well at all.

Third worse would be 100% cotton fabrics. This includes cotton prints like Camo that have the design only on one side. Cotton is a unique fabric. It continues to shrink throughout its entire life. So a kilt made of cotton will shrink in length unless you stretch and iron it after each and every washing. Cotton wrinkles just by looking at it and it will not hold a crease so every pleat must be edge stitched inside and out.
Included in this are denim. Today I refuse to make a kilt from denim after one customer who did not want to iron his kilt thinking, that like his denim jeans, would form fit to his body. Well, it did try to form fit. By shrinking. Until the pleats were short enough that their own weight would no longer pull the pleats down and the entire kilt stuck out like a ballet tutu.
The cotton fabrics also include the 'Carrhart' style of duck canvas. I have some that came off the exact same looms that produce the Carrhart brand fabrics. Yes, this fabric wears like iron but unlike carpenters coveralls that have legs inside to stretch the fabric back out, it will wrinkle and shrink just like denim. I had one customer who washed and dried his kilt, with a dozen hard rubber dryer balls, over 100 times in a vain attempt to get a duck canvas kilt to take on the softness of his beloved Carrhart coveralls.

Of all the solid colored fabrics that I have used, the best would probably be a Polyester and Cotton blend fabric similar to that used for "Dockers" brand slacks. This fabric is wrinkle resistant due to the 65% Polyester content. It machine washes and dries well and is fairly color fading resistant. But this fabric must still be edge stitched like cotton and will not take the compound curves that are necessary to an Iconic wool kilt to take its famous shape.

If you want to have a Tartan kilt that is not wool may I suggest you take a look at the Polyester/Rayon blends offered by the UK weaver "Marton Mills". This is the fabric which is used by myself and USA Kilts. This fabric is known in the UK as P/V. Short for Polyester/Viscose with Viscose being the British term for Rayon.

This name P/V was quickly adopted by the Sailkot, Pakistani makers to mean almost any synthetic fabric. It is quite common to see the term P/V used for Acrylic and Acrylic blends where there in no Polyester or Rayon at all.

I have been very happy with the Poly/Rayon fabrics and use it exclusively in my rental fleet. Rental kilts go through more abuse, in a shorter time, than almost any other kilts. I have some of my rentals that have been rented, and then machine washed and dried over 50 times, and they look as good today as the day they were made. They have not been touched by an iron since the day they were made and the pleat creases are as sharp and the fabric as wrinkle free as the day they were made.

If you want a solid colored work kilt my choice would be a 13oz 65% Polyester/ 35% cotton - "Dockers" pants fabric.
If you want a Tartan work kilt my choice would be "Marton Mills" 12oz Polyester/35% Rayon blends.

[Tobus]

Steve, does Marton Mills make any solid-colour PV twill fabrics similar to their tartan ones? If so, would that be your preference over the Dockers type material if making a solid-colour kilt? Or do you think the Dockers type material is better?
@Improv1, I had a PV casual kilt from USA Kilts at one time (Marton Mills material), and the material was indeed very easy to care for. It ticked off all of your critera: it handled dirt and sweat just fine, and was machine washable. The pleats on this one were stitched at the folds, but I know that other PV kilts are not, and they hold their pleats well. Wrinkling didn't seem to be an issue, to my recollection. I sold it because I wanted to move into higher-yardage wool kilts. But if I were looking for another knockabout kilt that would resist stains and such, I'd absolutely go back to a PV kilt (I still prefer more than 4 yards, though). I know USA Kilts has options in higher-yardage PV kilts, and Steve does too.

[Geoff Withnell]

Tobus,
The MM PV is available in at least solid green and saffron colors, I have USAK kilts those materials. I think black is also available.

[Improv1]

Thanks Steve,
Sage advice as always!

[Taj]

You don't state what kind of work. For any hot work stay away from synthetics. They will ignight and melt to your skin. Same for electrical work. A professional electrician already knows this, as well as knowing NFPA 70E, and wouldn't wear a kilt. A home owner might not know. Just be careful the garment is appropriate to the work.

Edit: you did mention lawn, but general home shop could involve a variety of tasks.

[Liam]

My suggestion is to wear any kilt and wear an apron over it when working.

[Steve Ashton]

Of course Marton Mills weaves solid color Poly/Rayon fabrics. They are primarily suppliers of fabrics for military and police uniforms and for academic robes and school uniforms.

The line of solid colored fabrics, woven in the same 2x2 Twill using the same yarns at the Tartan line, is called York. Any color found in one of the Tartan (Balmoral line) fabrics can be found in the York line.

The Polyester/Rayon fabrics woven by Marton Mills will not ignite nor melt to your skin. The fabric is self extinguishing and leaves an ash behind if exposed to direct flame. A cigarette burn leaves only a small, self sealing hole.

These fabrics are also Teflon coated to resist stains and, if pressed under the correct temperature, any creases will be almost permanent even after machine washing and drying.

There seems to be a bit of misunderstanding about terms and construction techniques. Let me see if I can explain.

The first garments in what we call the "Utility style" were made by the Utilikilt company of Seattle, WA USA. Designed by Steven Villegas, these were the first of the modern garments to use an old Reverse Kinguisse pleating style. Within a very short time there were literally hundreds of companies offering copies and outright knockoffs.
The Utilikilt was also the first garment to use a narrow (7") front apron. The original Utilikilt had a zipper front fly like the Cargo shorts from which they were born.
The "V" pattern of snaps on the front aprons was to give visual accent to the garment that was not worn with a sporran.
I can remember sitting with Steven one day and he strongly objected to the use of the word kilt to describe his product. He prefers the term MUG which stands for Male Un-Bifercated Garment. Steven denied that his product had any Scottish influence. He stated that the only reason the last for letters of the company name were KILT is because he well knew that he would never sell a product called a Utiliskirt.

Today the primary characteristic of the Utility style garments is not the pleats or the apron width or the pockets. It is how they are made. These garments are made like blue jeans. The overall strength of the garment comes from the strength of the fabric and the stitching. We call this construction "jeans made" vs the construction of an iconic kilt which is "kilt made".

Most of the Utility style garments use very little fabric. For example my personal Utilikilt (the prototype of the Survivor model) has only 2.3 linear yards of fabric.

When a kilt is made the amount of fabric is usually much more. We call the Iconic kilt an 8 yard kilt but the actual amount of fabric can vary dependent on the size of the Tartan, the hip circumference it needs to go around, and how the kilt is pleated.

An iconic kilt has distinctive front aprons which are usually slightly more than 1/2 of the wearers waist circumference. Some of the modern garments may have aprons of almost any width and shape imaginable. I have seen aprons which are 1/3 of the waist, The Stumptown company taper their aprons wider at the waist and narrow at the bottom.
It is usual for there to be two overlapping aprons with the under apron the same width as the outer apron. This would usually mean that a 7 inch wide apron would have a 7 inch under apron and overlap 7 inches. An iconic kilt for a guy with a waist of say 34 would have aprons of about 17 to 20 inches wide and would therefore overlap 17 to 20 inches.

So - What does this all mean?

Well, if you prefer the very wide and shallow pleats usually found on the Utility style or MUG's, if you prefer the Reverse Kiltguisse style of pleating, if you prefer the narrow aprons, if you prefer cargo pockets, and if you prefer to wear your kilt down where you wear blue jeans - then you would select one of the Utility (MUG) style garments.

If you prefer a wider apron with more overlap, if you prefer narrower or deeper pleats, if you prefer a garment that exhibits the famous swish then you would select one of the more iconic styles.

The fabric the garment is made from - the width and depth of the pleats, and how much overlap there is in the aprons is dependent on the maker.

There is one other factor which you should note. Many of the Utility style garments are mass produced. Some like the Utilikilt by many different sub-contractors much like an assembly line and some like UTKilts, and others which are often found on EBay, in Sailkot, Pakistan. With these garments you are basically buying "off-the-rack'.

Some makers like USA Kilts and Freedom Kilts are actual kiltmakers. You can call us and talk directly to the person who will make your kilt. Those who actually make the items they sell have the advantage that you can ask for almost anything your mind can imagine. It is up to us to make it for you.