"But I Don't Have Enough Money!"

[Bugbear]

Yes, and from what I understand, to the Scots, tartan a little worn around the edges is even better.

[rodandy]

However, there are MANY customers we've had over the years who have started out with a casual kilt ($100 ish) and moved up the ladder to nicer and nicer kilts, ending up with 8 yard wool kilts. MANY people have said to me something to this effect: "If I wouldn't have bought that first Casual, I would have never known how much I enjoy wearing kilts and ended up buying an 8 Yard Wool".

I'm a prime example of what Rocky is talking about. My first kilt was a Hiking kilt from Sportkilts at about $80. I wasn't sure I'd like wearing a kilt and wasn't about to spend several hundred dollars on something that might end up in the Goodwill box.

After wearing it on a couple of hikes I decided that I did like wearing the kilt, in spite of my family thinking I'm mad, so I bought a Works model from Sportkilts in the Anderson tartan for about $130 and then added the hose and a sporran and a Jacobite shirt so I could wear the kit to the local Highland Games. This all took place before I found XMarks.

I persuaded the wife to buy me an Argyll jacket and vest for Christmas and wore the ensemble to church about 6 weeks ago. Since then I've ordered a semi-trad from Rocky in the Edzell tartan and a custom hand sewn in Anderson Modern from ChattanCat here at the forum. I'm planning on my next two kilts just as soon as I can afford to pay cash for them, probably one from Kathy Lare and possibly one from Barb T.

There is also a lot of merit to what Scotus has said. If you want a real, traditional kilt and are willing to be patient, nearly anyone could save up enough money to have one made.

Yes, I remember when I was a junior NCO in the Navy and raising 3 kids. There frequently wasn't much money left over by the time pay day rolled around. We still managed to buy a new car every now and again and take a vacation on occasion. If I had been interested in kilts at that time I could have found a way. In the final analysis people usually find a way to do what they REALLY want to do, it's all a matter of priorities.

[kiltedsawyer]

I wanted expand a bit on my above post but didn't want to make the first too long or dis-jointed. So bear with me.

I am a traditionalist, I admit it. In fact, I'm proud of it. I come by that perspective naturally. I am by nature a conservative in the oldest and best sense of the word--deriving from the root "to conserve," meaning "to preserve and protect."

I like continuity with the past...with ghosts of all those who have gone before. Sometimes when I'm making a pair of shoes, I can feel them at my shoulder guiding my hands. I'm sure there are those who will dismiss that as overblown rhetoric but I assure you it is not. Creativity is something that comes from outside of yourself--it is a tapping into something that can only be described as "The Divine."

I like things that have meaning...like the generations old German Christmas cookies that come down through my family and Great Aunt Lydia Raab. All the years my girls were growing up I made nearly 800 cookies...every year. And it is now a tradition that they are passing on to their families. They don't know what it is to have nothing more than the miserable droppings of the Pillsbury Doughboy at Christmas.

I like things that are quality...that bear witness to a human hand. That evoke the heart and the soul of real human beings and not just commercial mechanisms. That will last...that I will hand down to my great great grandchildren. That will be cherished not only for the family connections but for the enduring functionality and quality. And be marveled at as a testament of "how much people cared in those days."

I like things that say something about us as people, as human beings, as souls on a journey to eternity. Like old brownstones and gothic cathedrals. Regional accents and farmhouse cheeses. And microbrews made with nothing but barley, water and hops. Skills passed down from one generation of stonemasons to the next. (In my work we used techniques that date back, virtually unchanged, to the 14th century.) And "re-discovered" farming techniques that preserve the land. And National Parks. And the Constitution of the United States of America. And the battlefields at Gettysburg and elsewhere--and I like them fine as they are...without a shopping mall on them.

I also like Traditional wool tartan kilts and all the traditional accouterments...for all the reasons that apply above.

None of these things need updating or interpretation or improvement...or more shopping opportunities or quicker times to market. In fact, they all suffer at the hands of the "sophisticated " (from the same root as sophistry) class.

I like "raindrops on roses..." too, in case anyone is wondering.

I am so much in agreement with this. It seems that our society has become so instantaneous in it's need for gratification, so "point and click." It seems there are so many "cheap knock-offs," disposable items, and a lack of appreciation for craftsmanship. This of course goes far beyond kilts and traditional scottish attire. It's everywhere, and I don't see us going back to the days when quality mattered or when craftsmanship was revered. So for some of us, it's like being dragged kicking and screaming into the mass produced mall of our discontent.

Respectfully,
David