Looking for Advice

[Jock Scot]

A little off topic but I’ve seen some early 20th century reference to “dress kilts” made of finer tartan fabric but I’ve never actually seen an example. Was your uncle’s kilt like that?

I do agree that loud Macleod looks great with formal wear. Something about the contrast with a black jacket I think. The President’s son pulls it off quite well.

Good question! My reply comes with a "health" warning though. My answers are made with a hazy and imperfect memory and no reliable technical details. Whilst I grew up in a family of kilt wearers who knew how to wear the kilt to best effect, there was absolutely no interest in the technical detail of how a kilt was made or weights of cloth or colour hues. Those details were left entirely to the kilt maker and if Grandfathers kilt was going strong fifty years after it was built then that was where we as a family went to get our own kilts. So it was a "you build it and I will fly it" situation and I think many kilt wearers outwith this website still think that way. I certainly do.

So to answer the question with the "health "warning of that hazy and imperfect memory fully in place. Plus, you have to remember two things, many of the kilts that I wore in my youth were hand-me-downs and were probably at least fifty, perhaps more, years old in those days and I was born in 1940! So from memory, the " normal" tartan cloth appeared heavier, rougher and harder than todays tartan cloths. At a guess the old tartan weight was as least 20 oz and probably 22/24 oz in weight. So dress tartans were lighter and at a guess were more like a 13/15/16 oz weight and a feel of todays cloth. Some very smart dress tartans were reputed to have silk threads woven into the cloth, maybe some were completely made of silk, but I have no idea if the dress kilt that I wore for a while had any silk content.

If I could go back in time just for a wee while I would love to have a real heavyweight, with the old tartan cloth characteristics kilt made again. Whilst a modern tartan heavyweight(16/18 oz) cloth is nice, I still miss that almost indestructible feeling that old fashioned 20+oz kilts used to give.