Just don't understand the high price...

[Jock Scot]

Well it most certainly is not the cost of the fleece! I cannot speak with any authority on the costs of weaving and tayloring,but I used to have a flock of 5000 sheep and I am delighted to be rid of them!About 15 years ago we broke even between the cost of shearing and the value of the fleece and its been getting worse ever since.About 10 years ago the fleece was worth so little that although the fleeces were paid for no one bothered to collect them.The sheep enterprise ceased from then on.My friends, who still have sheep,tell me its even worse now. Out of interest the hill looks much better without the sheep knawing away at everything,the heather is more healthy and far more widespread and the wildlife is far more proliffic.The downside to that is, we had 10 sheepherds then, now we have none.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

As has already been pointed out, a good bit of the cost of a kilt is bound up in the cost of the material. It is not cheap.

Above and beyond that, though, your average hand sewn kilt most likely has 20 hours of labor in it. Of course that adds to the cost.

But back to the cloth. We can all agree that it is expensive. Why? Lots of factors. First off, the yarn that it is woven from is not free by a long shot. As the husband of a wife who knits, I can tell you that quality yarn can cost quite a bit. And when we are talking about the fine Scottish woolen tartans we all know and love, those are made from quality yarns.

Then there is the fact that these mills are producing a specialty fabric. There is a relatively small market for the cloth, all things considered. They are not producing cloth on a scale to be made into shirts and pants to be carried by Wal*Mart, JC Pennies, Target, etc., or even some of the nicer clothing retailers. It is a niche market, which means that they are producing the cloth on a much smaller scale.

And they are not just producing a few stock patterns. There are tons of tartans to be had. To use just one mill as an example, I just did a count of House of Edgar's stock list. If you include all the different color variations and different weights of material they offer, they keep in stock 1019 tartans. That is a huge variety! Keeping that many tartans on hand of course limits the amount of any one tartan they can hold at a time. All things considered, even the larger woolen mills are producing each individual tartan on a relatively small scale.

And the cloth has to be up to certain specs. We all know how important it is for your kilt to be made from cloth with a proper cosed kilting selvedge. Not all looms are capable of producing this. Most modern looms used in the tartan industry are "rapier" looms that produce a tucked selvedge, which gets mixed reviews. House of Edgar, to stay with my example, recently invested in all new custom-designed looms to replace their old looms for which they could no longer get parts for repair. I imagine that kind of custom machinery comes at a high cost, but their cloth has a beautiful kilting selvedge and they wanted to maintain that standard.

Lastly, we have to look at where the cloth is being produced. My native North Carolina was once the heart of the textile industry in the United States, but the mills have by and large closed down and moved to places where they could operate at a much lower cost, such as Mexico, China, and South America. Well, while people don't much mind wearing underwear and tube socks made in Guatemala, they want their kilt to be made of tartan from Scotland. Who can blame them!? It's a heritage garment for most people, and they want it to be a product of the country that it represents for them.

This means that the mills are operating in a First World country with a higher standard of living than lots of places. We don't need to go into the economics of it all, but suffice to say it costs a lot more to run a mill there than it would in many other parts of the world.

All of this builds up to a relatively high cost of the fabric per yard. As someone who retails tartan material by the yard through the STM gift shop, I can vouch that for most tartan retailers, there is not a very high profit margin in the cloth at all. I can't speak to how much profit the mills themselves make, but they need to make enough to stay in business.

This also means that there is a very low profit margin on kilts, as well. Though they may be one of the most expensive things we offer in the STM gift shop, they have just about the lowest profit margin of anything we sell. That's probably true at just about any tartan retail shop.

What a lot of folks probably don't realize is that places that sell the inexpensive acrylic or acrylic blend kilts coming out of Asia actually have a much, much higher profit margin on those items. I've seen what they cost wholesale, and I know what they retail for. If 100% wool, Scottish made, hand sewn kilts were to be sold at the same mark up, very, very few of us would be able to afford one.

So, all this is to say that yes, kilts are expensive, but with good reason, and all said and done, they are not as expensive as they could be.

[Hamish]

Very, very well stated Matt. Thank you.

Take care,
Ham.

[Pleater]

A factor not yet mentioned, although the looms are automatic once set up and working, before starting production each one has to have someone put in the warp threads correctly and the weft yarns have to be selected and installed in the correct order too - otherwise you get something which is not a tartan.

This takes time, and sometimes there are going to be mistakes.

In addition there is all the stock of different yarns in different weights and colours, and the staff to maintain the stocks, select it for the different runs, and ensure that there is enough of all the colours in one dye lot to complete the run.

Many fabrics are produced in runs of hundreds of thousands of metres, and some machines just run all the time, using undyed yarn and the pattern is printed on afterwards. The difference in labout costs is huge.

Baroness Anne the mirthful of Fritterton on the Heath

[RockyR]

Matt is pretty much spot on in his comments. I will agree with ANOTHER person though and point out another often under appreciated reason...

Also consider that good tartan wool generally comes from overseas, and the dollar is down significantly against the pound, the euro and other currencies.

This is EXACTLY a HUGE part of the reason. When I started this business 5 years ago, the dollar was about $1.45 to a GBP. That went up pretty quickly to $1.8 to 1 GBP. Right now, it's at (and was just recently OVER) $2 : 1 GBP. What does that mean?

All "inflation" costs being the same, an IMPORTED item that cost 300 GBP would have cost you $435, 5 years ago. That SAME item (300 GBP) will NOW cost you $600.

THAT'S why prices have gone up so much.

Now that doesn't account for any US made item. If the cost of a US made item has gone up, it could be due to raw material increases, customs crack down, etc...

[Jerry]

Speaking as someone who has worked maintaining industrial machines(not looms) I can add one thing to what Matt said. That bored looking guy you talk about watching the looms making fabric is not the skilled labor. That in the guy who does the complicated and time consuming process of setting up those machines to produce a specific tartan. I can not say that it isn't done by computer, today, but I would bet against it.

[DWFII]

Just a note...kilts may be high but they don't have to be out the window.

I just bought a 10 yard tank, made of 16 ounce Martin Mills worsted, hand and machine stitched, with flashes and a pair of matching hose, from the Kilt Store and it cost just a little over $400 US with express shipping.

Of course, as an Xmarks member I got 10% off.

And although I didn't have a choice of any tartan I fancied, there were literally hundreds of tartans I could choose at that price and not all of them were "universal."

All that said, I am literally gob-smacked all all the folks who will spend $700-$1,000 on a kilt...the finest quality available and reasonably so...and then short shrift everything else--from sporrans, to belts to Argyll jackets.

Hmm...maybe the cost of the kilt leaves little for anything else...

[auld argonian]

Just for the hell of it, I just googled "Armani pants". Right now, a pair of Giorgio Armani troosers at Bergdorf Goodman are on sale for $600...they regularly go for about $800.

To eliminate the "designer" factor, a serviceable pair of woolen pants from Lands End can be had for $70 to $125.

Not that I want to sully the tone with common trousers but that is the alternative and I doubt that the material used is anywhere as nice, heavy-duty or interesting as tartan.

Once you have a kilt made from 16 or even 13 ounce worsted tartan, you get it. The stuff is so nice that you understand why it's worth what it's worth immediately. I once had an older lady at a fabric store give me the business about "how dumb you all are paying that kind of money for that plaid fabric" but all I could do is smile and politely excuse myself from the conversation...I had to wonder if she had ever seen any real worsted tartan.

Best

AA

[Riverkilt]

When I worked in cut and sew as a young man we counted the thread used in sewing a garment as part of the cost of the garment.

For a hand sewn kiltmaker using inexpensive polyesther thread is out of the question. For long kilt life ONLY strong cotton thread will due. Cotton thread strong enough to stand up to the stress we put on kilts currently only comes from the UK or Germany. In addition to paying for quality thread that will stand up for generations that thread has more cost due to shipping and the exchange rates.

As for labor a quality kiltmaker is going to take the time to wax the thread before they sew. A bit more time added but also VALUE added for the owner of the kilt.

As pointed out, obtaining the raw materials - starting with breeding sheep, its the little things that add up and make the cost of the kilt seem "high."

If a person thinks of a hand sewn wool kilt woven in a tartan meaningful to them in terms of VALUE they will not hesitate to pay the craftsmen involved fair price and thank them for learning their crafts.

I have ELEVEN hand sewn wool kilts and treasure them because of their VALUE to me.

Ron

[jmercier]

All that said, I am literally gob-smacked all all the folks who will spend $700-$1,000 on a kilt...the finest quality available and reasonably so...and then short shrift everything else--from sporrans, to belts to Argyll jackets.

Hmm...maybe the cost of the kilt leaves little for anything else...

I'm with you on this one. Thus why i own a 400$ sporran, and my favorite pair of kilt hose are 50$ socks, and I wear a self made sgian dubh that with the time and labor I put into making it I certainly wouldnt sell for less than 300$, etc. About the only part of my kilt outfit that isnt top quality is, i just wear regular shirts, and I dont have a pair of shoes specifically for when I'm kilted, but I do have several pair of dress shoes.

Actually, I've spent more on my beaver fur ferguson britt sporan than I have on any kilt.

That said, I have no problem spending the right amount of money for a quality product. As a hobby craftsperson, I know just how much time and effort it takes to make good quality items, and I'd much rather pay more and have somethign that will last a lifetime then pay a little and have to replace it multiple times.