Waist Placement

[Barb T]

Actually, whether you wear the kilt at the waist _does_ matter. A kiltmaker who makes a properly made trad kilt makes the smallest part of the kilt at the center line of the buckle, with the kilt flaring a little from there to the top of the kilt so that, when the kilt is buckled tightly, it stays put at the waist and sits properly in the small of the back. Even if a kiltmaker doesn't flare the kilt a little in the rise, the kilt will be made straight from the center of the buckle to the top of the kilt without any additional taper. So, if you wear the kilt lower than your waist, the top of the kilt doesn't fit properly if you try to buckle it over your hips.

Remember that a kilt is a traditional garment made to be worn in a certain way - in this case, with the short jacket that was popular in the 19th century. The jackets were short enough that, if the kilt weren't worn at the waist and if it didn't have a rise (back then typically 3-4"), there'd be an unsightly gap between the top of the kilt and the bottom of the jacket, especially when the wearer bent over. Even though men now wear kilts with lots of different kinds of tops, the design of the kilt has changed only in the height of the rise (now about 2").

So, many of the guys on this forum have said many times that you just have to get used to it. Once you're used to wearing a kilt where it's made to be worn, you don't notice that it feels different than your pants do. It just starts to feel like a kilt.

Also, if you have a "bit of a corporation" and you wear a trad kilt below your tummy, it won't hang right and will actually accentuate the fact that you have a belly, because you get big swales in the apron. If you browse around a bit in "Show me your pics", you'll find pics of some of our larger gentlemen wearing their kilts properly, and the apron of the kilt is nice and smooth. Wearing a kilt properly actually has a slimming effect.

So, realize that I'm talking about trad kilts. Contemporary kilts are commonly made to be worn lower. But, if you own a properly made trad kilt, it will only look right and fit right if you wear it as high as it was meant to be worn.

The two kilts below are worn properly high, at the waist. You can also see in this profile view that, if they were worn too low, they actually wouldn't be big enough around because they are made to fit around the waist.