Sadly, I am not up on the details that differ between a kilt hand sewn by a member of the Traditional Kiltmaker's Guild and other kiltmakers members of that guild feel "tailor" their kilts. Certainly an inside thing.

I can only speculate that it makes sense that there would be differences between how kiltmaking was taught at the Keith Kilt School and how Barb T. apprenticed, or how Matt apprenticed, or how various other kiltmakers found on the Internet learned their craft.

I would guess in any craft there would be differences in the techniques used by various craftsmen that lay folks would have no clue about.

Which brings me back to the original question, is there an earned designation to be called a Master Kiltmaker - or is just a subjective term that middle men use when trying to sell kilts - that they will have them sewn up by their master kiltmakers, or a term some individual kiltmakers affect for advertising and promotion purposes?

I'm guessing the later since none of our experts on the board seem aware of a program of some sort one would complete to attain the title of Master Kiltmaker. Closest to that seems to be the Scottish Qualifications Board kiltmaking credential.

So I'm guessing when I see the term Master Kiltmaker associated with a kiltmaker's name that there's no meat to it, no credential or program behind it. And I think we've determined the STA isn't issuing such a credential.

Ron