Pleating Opinion

[Pleater]

Really? If done at both sides, it shouldn't do anything with the centre of the back - or am I wrong?

Th apron and fell are often pleated to create a definite feature of the sett in the centre front and back, so that if the waist is narrowed or enlarged that feature, or sometimes pair of features moves off centre.
Once you see it it can really stand out - a pair of stripes or bands, a particularly vivid band, if not centred makes the whole garment look lopsided.

Anne the Pleater

[MHorne39]

What about to the red strip?

The kilt maker sent that one along as well, but the red didn’t really stand out, and to me it looked the most lawn-chairs of all the options.

[GG]

Th apron and fell are often pleated to create a definite feature of the sett in the centre front and back, so that if the waist is narrowed or enlarged that feature, or sometimes pair of features moves off centre.
Once you see it it can really stand out - a pair of stripes or bands, a particularly vivid band, if not centred makes the whole garment look lopsided.

Anne the Pleater

Thank you, Anne. I got it. You are right.

[OC Richard]

Really? If done at both sides, it shouldn't do anything with the centre of the back - or am I wrong?

At least with my own kilts (due to weight variations) and the kilts of the Pipe Bands I've been in, kilts have been made larger or smaller by the simple expedient of moving the buckle(s) on the wearer's right side.

The apron isn't being altered. So when the right-hand buckle (or pair of buckles) is moved further back (towards the back of the kilt's centre-line) to make the kilt smaller, or moved further forward (towards the under-apron) to make the kilt bigger, when the kilt is worn with the upper apron centred the back of the kilt is thrown off.

For sure this is far from ideal and the proper way to do it would be to rebuild the kilt, or better yet get a new kilt. (Kiltmakers I've known would much rather make a kilt from scratch than take an existing kilt all apart and re-build it.)

Nevertheless with kilts like mine, without belt-loops and pleated to the stripe, the back of the kilt has no centre-line to be thrown off.

[OC Richard]

The apron and fell are often pleated to create a definite feature of the sett in the centre front and back, so that if the waist is narrowed or enlarged that feature, or sometimes pair of features moves off centre.
Once you see it it can really stand out - a pair of stripes or bands, a particularly vivid band, if not centred makes the whole garment look lopsided.

I think that's why the vast majority of pipe bands have their kilts pleated to the stripe: the kilts are constantly being taken in and let out to fit generation after generation of band members.

I know of bands that have been wearing the same tartan since the 1950s. Who knows how many times those kilts have been altered!

[YOJiMBO20]

I’m a fan of that tartan (hence the avatar).

I like the blue stripe best, fwiw.

[DCampbell16B]

I think that's why the vast majority of pipe bands have their kilts pleated to the stripe:.

Also, it may have been done because British and Dominion military kilts were to the stripe. Many early bands were full dress to imitate that. And other bands may have sourced from military surplus to start out.

[OC Richard]

Also, it may have been done because British and Dominion military kilts were to the stripe. Many early bands were full dress to imitate that. And other bands may have sourced from military surplus to start out.

That's an interesting theory. For sure around half the pipes bands in the old days dressed in quasi-military kit (feather bonnets etc) and these bands may have consciously followed military pleating.

The other half of pipe bands in the old days wore civilian Evening Dress.

It's been 40 years since bands, either civilian or military, have competed in military-style Full Dress. But some civilian bands have been wearing the same tartan, the same kilts, for longer than that. (It's a massive expense for a band to change their kilts.)

I think bands mostly pleat to the stripe because for whatever reason the top Grade One bands did it and it's a monkey-see monkey-do scene.