Brice, I think it's because the people who make kilts really love making kilts...and....there are people around who will pay for the high quality.

I have seen a couple of Freedom kilts close up. I've inspected them, looked at the stitching, looked at the construction, felt the material. A Freedom kilts kicks the proverbial butt off any X-Kilt, unless it's made by a professional. I've seen some R-kilts, and inspected them close up. They are in a whole other league from any home-made X-Kilt.

I know that Steve needs to sell some socks, a sporran or two, maybe a t-shirt of two to keep afloat. How Robert does it, I can't guess.

I know that when I was unemployed a couple of years ago, right when I had finished the first X-Kilt manual, I thought about going into business as a kiltmaker. I crunched the number three or four times and then I rejected the idea on the simple basis of dollars and cents.

Brice, have you made a kilt? Have you made five or ten kilts? I suggest that you do that, and THEN talk about how it can be done in the USA for better, faster and cheaper. Oh, and while you're at it, talk to the people in Texas who used to stitch up Levi Strauss blue jeans...but don't anymore because their jobs left for labor overseas which costs 1/20th as much.

I looked into the costs of running a small operation producing maybe 500 - 1000 kilts a year, and having the things sewn up in a maquila in El Salvador. At that volume, without me going totally full-time and more, I couldn't even break even. Up that volume by a factor of 20 and then I might be able to make some money, and sell a $100 contemporary kilt. But tell me about the market out there for 20,000 kilts a year, for five or six years.