Just a whiney complaint...

[Bugbear]

Ehh, there are more expencive obsessions... I used to collect microphones; they can get pricey. I also used to collect rare coins, and they can get very expencive.

On the other hand, there is a price/quality range in the kilt and accessory realm. Throw in the DIY angle, and it's manageable over time.

[sathor]

I also used to collect rare coins, and they can get very expencive.

I have my collection. Almost debate selling them off for kilt money. The forums for the coin people got to me. The people talking about the cases of the gold coins they were sending in for grading, how they were buying up coins by maxing their CC's, where each coin cost more than my rent. For a year.

The most I think I hear a kilt costing is about 600, even a full outfit is less than my yearly rent. Even with his many kilts, Hamish (I hope I spelled that right) is still seemingly down to earth, and is more of a 'pioneer' than the guy showing off just how rich he is. It's a whole different bunch here.

[Pleater]

In times long past, if you had your sheep grazing around the house, or your household swapped eggs (for instance) with a sheep keeping household, you could expect your good ladies and maids to set to and spin, dye and produce the yarn, and the local weaver would make the cloth, so in a year or two you'd have a kilt length, and a similar process would get you a jacket or plaid.

It might have cost quite a lot in time and effort, and in resources, but it would not be all at once, and once got, it would have become something to list in any accounting of the household and to put in your will to be sure it went to the right person.

Just because modern clothing is mass produced by close to slave labour we do tend to see anachronistic garments as expensive, when really they are about the same as they always were and everything else has got cheaper.

I once priced an embroidered linen smock of the 'Olde English' type, something most labouring men would have had maybe three of, when I was asked to make one, and it came out at three to four hundred pounds, and that was charging nowhere near the minimum hourly rate for employment, and that was 30 years ago.

I did suggest that the would be purchaser could come around and clean house, redecorate it, work in the garden and cook my meals as I worked - but somehow that did not appeal.

It is possible to wear kilts and enjoy the freedom without doing the full fig of 'highland attire' - but if you want to dress like a laird, you need the same level of financing.

Anne the Pleater