8 yards: when, and why?

[OC Richard]

...then just adding more material with deeper pleats for the look.

All of the Scottish Highland regimental kilts were pleated to the line, so that adding yardage increased the number of pleats and made the visible portion of each pleat narrower, but didn't appreciably increase the depth of the pleats.

On pleated-to-the-line kilts what would make for deeper pleats would be to use a larger sett size, and in fact this happened too: Napoleonic kilts had a rather small sett size, but by the mid 19th century the sett sizes had got quite huge.

I did read Matt's article and other things which document that kilts originally had less yardage. But they don't address WHY the Army kept increasing the yardage as the 19th century wore on. That's what I wonder: whatever purpose was served by having more and more yardage hanging on your backside, making the kilts less and less balanced?

[HarborSpringsPiper]

But they don't address WHY the Army kept increasing the yardage as the 19th century wore on. That's what I wonder: whatever purpose was served by having more and more yardage hanging on your backside, making the kilts less and less balanced?

So, you don't think it was for looks? I understand you are looking for documentation, but I wonder if that exists. I know government entities love to document things, though I'm not sure things like the "why's" of a uniform change get recorded.

[OC Richard]

Yes I suppose it had to be for the look... though I myself think the older kilts with less yardage look just as good, if not better, than the later kilts with more, narrower pleats. The "swing" doesn't seem to be that different between my 9 yard and my 6 yard kilts.

The way that the various Highland regiments fiercely guarded their "tribal" distinctions, one wouldn't expect that all the kilted regiments would increase the yardage in lockstep, but they seem to have done.