Converting a Kilted Skirt?

[Kilted Canadian]

My mother has a rather nice kilted skirt in the Stewart Hunting tartan. It's wool, though I don't know what weight, has good pleats, and my grandmother says she can hem it.

What I would like to know is: Can it be modified to a man's kilt? For example, reversing which apron folds on the bottom of the kilt, sewing in a lining, and adding straps? Or would that butcher the garment?

[Lallans]

I should wait for an expert to reply- but that's never stopped me before, so man to man I would advise you to be really really careful about something like that. For sure, made sure you are completely familiar with how a regular, that is to say a man's, kilt is put together. There were postings here not too long ago about a couple of kilt efforts that... no I can't even think about it.

[auld argonian]

Most kilted skirts that I've seen have way to little fabric and the pleats are way too shallow to make an adequate men's kilt. That's assuming that you could reverse the aprons...and that's assuming that there even are wide enough under and over aprons...again, haven't seen that in any kilted skirt that I've ever looked at.

Might be a non-starter...

Best

AA

[CaseyB]

Also, kilts are fitted garment and if the skirt fits your mom I would say that the hip / waist ratio is probably wrong for you and if you tried to fix that you'd end up having to remake the whole kilt.

[CMcG]

John from Keltoi (one of our sponsors) wrote a post one time about this issue. He would look for women's kilted skirts with heavier weight tartan and then completely dismantle them for the fabric... Apparently he has found some that had enough material for a 4 yard, box pleated, men's kilt.

[Pleater]

Unless it is a very unusual skirt there will simply not be enough fabric - I am thinking of the aprons rather than the pleats.

Once it is shortened there will simply not be enough coverage - no big pleats to ensure the aprons drop - even with a surruptitious tug of the under apron so you can fix it under your left thigh the apron will then most likely try to depart unless you clamp that between your knees and then try to sit like a lady.

One reason to wear the kilt, I find, is that in modern times women's clothes in general lack the opulence of a similar garment for a man.

Even for 'The New Look', when clothing was no longer made under wartime yardage restrictions, the garments were only cut to LOOK extravagant and the jackets were carefully designed to use the maximum amount of cut away fabric from the skirt.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[O'Callaghan]

It will never look like an 8 yd kilt, but that wouldn't bother me. Most of my kilts aren't either. Only my plain black one has that much yardage.

For me the bottom line is that you can always tell because with knife pleating the pleats run in the opposite direction from a man's kilt. Merely converting it to fasten the other way won't change that. Even my son, who has never worn a kilt, noticed that on a guy at the RenFest. If he noticed that this guy's pleats ran in the wrong direction ...

[MacLowlife]

The kilt I am wearing in my avatar is a converted woman's skirt. Flip the apron and pin it to see if it works. If it does, then fix the buckles. If it doesn't. give up...

Please note, I have since abandoned this sex change kilt, but it served me well before I was able to get a proper one.

[Kilted Canadian]

MacLowlife, I plan to do just that. A friend asked me to be kilted at her Halowe'en party, so I'm just looking for something that will do the job, and do it cheaply, until I invest in an authentic 8-yarder in my family tartan.

Or would it be a safer bet to simply rent a kilt?

[MacLowlife]

At the risk of sounding a wee bit too thrifty, I would say dinna rent one when you've a'ready got one.