Keeping up with the Joneses

[CDNSushi]

Well, the package from Edinburgh arrived right on schedule. I had to wait a week before I could go out and wear it in public, but once I did I made sure to take pictures (included below). But first, some general comments.

This is a 3-for-the-price-of-one review... Kilt from Marchbrae, new kilt hose from W. Brewin & Co., and last (but certainly not least), "Dept. of Highland Security" T-Shirt, courtesy of our very own Kerr the Walker.

First, the shirt. Mucho thank-yous to Kerr for designing (and now redesigning) a heckova nice T-Shirt. The "Department of Highland Security" logo with the "D H S" on the back (aka. administrative enforcement agency style) looks really sharp. I ordered it without actually having seen it, but I was not disappointed. Good quality shirt and nice silk-screening. At some point it would still be cool to have one with the original design... A large logo on the front. (Any chance of that at some point in the future? If not, I totally understand).

Second, the hose. W. Brewin & Co. is based out of Leicester (U.K.) and specializes mainly in socks of all kinds. Kilt hose are only a portion of their overall sales business. The kilt hose themselves are marketed as "kilt hose," are designed and manufactured in the U.K., and made of 46% Wool 46% Acrylic 7% Nylon 1% Lycra.

The package was sent very quickly and professionally. Individual pairs can be had for £4.25 plus shipping, but I opted for a set of 6 pairs, which runs at a slight discount: £24.50 plus shipping.

The quality of the hose is what you'd expect from the price. Not much. They are functional, but they are much too thin to have anything but the most basic use. This is fine, but I strongly recommend you leave the sgian dubh at home! If you look at my "pleat shot" you can pretty much see the entire outline of the sgian as if I were wearing sheer stockings. Not good. In fact, I was going to not include that picture because it looks bloody awful due to that fact alone, but I decided that for the sake of educating the masses, I would show everyone what happens when your hose are too thin! I still don't intend on buying $100+ hose any time soon, but perhaps a couple of slightly higher quality pair will soon be called for.

Last, the kilt. I'm saving the longest, most elaborate review for last. First off, I'm going to save a ton of duplication here and just refer people back to the Marchbrae review that Chef wrote last year, and just add: "What he said!" The kilt looks pretty much identical, and I agree with his assessment 100%. The only thing I CANNOT comment on is how this fits in relation to a custom-tailored kilt, as I've not yet owned one. However, that having been said, I move on to the next part of my review.

In Chef's review, he mentioned that this kilt is an "off-the-peg" kilt. Indeed. However, there have been a few changes to the company since his review and I'd like to address them here. First, in regards to the website itself, it looks as though it has gone through a couple of changes. http://www.marchbrae.co.uk/ is the main page for kilts. They used to go by "Woolen Mill" but now, all references to "Woolen Mill" point and redirect to Marchbrae.

Next, when selecting their "off-the-peg" kilts, they DO have a function where you can select the appropriate combination of waist size (ranges from 30"/76.2cm to 44"/111.8cm); hip (seat) size: (36"/91.4cm to 44"/111.8cm) and length (22"/55.9cm to 27"/68.5cm). If you are unsure of your measurements (which seem to be fairly standard) you can get their measuring guide. The link to download it from the site was (and still remains at the time of this writing) broken... When I e-mailed them, I got a reply containing a .PDF attachment within 24 hours, containing the measuring guide. The reason why I bring this up, is that in Chef's review, he only made mention of the waist size, but at least according to their current ordering site, you get to specify all three measurements: waist, hip and length.

Next: shipping. It seems that Royal Post was no longer an option... I was forced to have my kilt sent by UPS. It cost me £65 plus another £12 for import duty. I was glad to get my kilt quickly, but pretty cheezed off at having had to pay so much AND getting that extra charge slapped on top. In the end, £72 is about 2/3 of the price of the kilt itself. Yuck! I did however send them a long, (but very polite) e-mail after the fact explaining the situation. They replied very professionally, stating that they would definitely think about and consider my suggestion of offering customers the choice of shipping methods. I won't include the contents of our e-mail exchange, but if someone is morbidly curious exactly how it all went down, just PM me and I'll give you the gory details. I explained to them that I have done business with other, numerous retailers from the U.K. and Royal Post would have been preferable due to UPS's ineptitude in providing adequate brokerage services... I didn't say that I wouldn't buy from them in the future because of this, but I DID tell them that if I know a given company only offers UPS for shipping service, that DOES have an impact on my purchasing decisions.

The kilt arrived in a standard UPS mailer box. I was surprised that the pleats were not baste-stitched. Didn't seem to matter though... It arrived in top-notch shape, without so much as a wrinkle or pleat out of place. The quality is exactly as Chef described it in his review.


Conclusions: I'm thrilled about all three of my purchases. Love the T-shirt, very happy to have some multi-coloured kilt hose to wear with my growing kollection of kilts and the kilt itself? Well jeez! It's a beautiful wool, 6-yard 13 oz. IOS. What more could you ask for? Especially for the price! Fits beautifully and it is now, by far, my favourite kilt! Funny, I put on my SWK Standard Nightstalker the next day, just to kick around the house and there really is NO comparison. Seriously. I never imagined how stark a contrast it would be, but the "feel" is different, the "fit" is different, the way the fabric behaves is different.

Now, to comply with the "piccies or it never happened" requirement of XMTS, here are some of me at home, wearing my DHS shirt, W. Brewin hose (Lovat green) and Marchbrae 6-yd Isle of Skye kilt.




(Note, we have tatami mats everywhere in the whole darned house, and I wanted to model my attire with shoes on, so I got a couple of small square tiles of carpet to stand on).

Next, is an obligatory "pleat" shot... Notice how you can see the sgian through the hose. Definitely not a nice look. Definitely a "kilt don't".




Picture from the back -- you can see the "D H S" on the T-shirt and the knife pleating on the kilt. I tried another belt on for this set but it's a little too thin, IMO... Note to self: buy a wider, brown leather belt.




Inspired by Ron from another recent thread, I decided to model a pose without the sporran. You can see the DHS logo on the shirt a little bit better here...




FWIW, I got a ton of compliments on the kilt. The IOS is just so distinctive and people really do sit up and take notice when you're wearing it. Without a doubt, it's one of the nicest tartans around.

P.S. So, do I get my secret decoder ring and secret handshake now for being a member of the IOS club?