Shortening a kilt?

[acolander]

With all due respect, a friend of mine is a tailor for his regiment and regularly blind hems regimental Kilts for the folk who are simply too short for moving the buckles to work. His official guidelines state that since the Kilts are often passed on to other lads it is better to do a blind hem that can be taken down later than to cut length from the top and leave the kilt useable only to a small percent of the regiment in the future.

I've seen his work and even with my very critical eye there's not a hint of pleats splaying or anything that looks different from the usual selvage.

Would he be the tailor for the RRS, or another Scottish regt of some other CW country? If the former, I would be interested to see any pics if possible of a hemmed military box pleat kilt (the subject of the OP's post), or of any hemmed military kilt if the latter.

I have hemmed many kilts. If it is done properly, it can't be seen from 5' away, let alone from across the parade ground...

...The main difference for a set of kilts (such as band kilts) is that, with a hem, the part of the sett at the bottom of the kilt is not the same because you've turned up the bottom (provided, of course, that all the tartan was woven the same way in the first place). It's not the hem that shows, it's the difference in the part of the sett at the bottom of the kilt.

Not to speak for Seaforth Piper, but from across the parade ground (aka "meat grinder") one can tell if a military kilt has been hemmed (badly or not) solely for this reason as the sett on military kilts are a proscribed distance from the selvedge.

Similarily, one can also discern a WPG reproduction kilt at a distance by the same method as all the setts on WPG kilts I have seen were not woven at the proscribed distance, rather they will often vary in distance from kilt to kilt of the same sett as can be seen from pics both here on this forum and elsewhere.

From a military perspective, I would tend to agree w/ Seaforth Piper that variances as such doesn't look good on parade where everyone is to be uniform.


BTW, in case Arlen doesn't have any available pics, does anyone here have any pics of a hemmed military kilt w/ box pleats? Or even knife for that matter...

[Barb T]

True, and that's why I added the caveat that a hem does change the part of the sett at the bottom of the kilt. But, if you're not in a military regiment and can live with a different part of the sett at the bottom of the kilt, the hem itself won't show if it's done properly.

Personally, I think the bigger question is what a 4-5" hem does to the swing of the kilt. If you hem it that much, the proportion of the fell to the total kilt length goes wacko, and the fell is stitched down too far for the length of the kilt and the kilt doesn't swing properly. If the reverse is true and you're letting a kilt down, you can always stitch the pleats down a little farther. But you can't unstitch the pleats if you put a hem in because the pleats are cut out.

[Pleater]

I find much of the differences in height of adults is in the length of the lower leg, though - people are much more even in height when sitting down.

My son is about 7 inches taller than his father and 5 inches of that is the leg length.

A shorter kilt might swing less, as the ratio of fell to the total length is greater, but the shorter wearer might be just as long in the body as the taller one.

Shortening the fell would then mean that the fell finishes above the widest part of the hips, and I suspect that would make the pleats inclined to flare rather than drop vertically.

Reading the recent posts on hems reminded me of the stage manager who - upon hearing producers requesting champagne effects on lemonade budgets would mutter 'In the city of celestial virgins such things are found...' and he would describe sources for the requirement which would make a sailor blush.

The comment 'celestial virgins' became shorthand for 'That is rather out of touch with the earthbound reality of everyday existence.' - a surprisingly useful description really.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[acolander]

True, and that's why I added the caveat that a hem does change the part of the sett at the bottom of the kilt. But, if you're not in a military regiment and can live with a different part of the sett at the bottom of the kilt, the hem itself won't show if it's done properly.

Quite right, and remiss of me for not including the non-military perspective saying as such.

And as you mentioned, the bigger question in this instance is "what a 4-5" hem does to the swing of the kilt."

However, ;) with regard to hemming a military wt kilt... Having put many a traditional cavalry cut hem in military wt trews I can understand a (smaller) hem being a viable option for a knife pleat, but the military box pleat I'm a bit skeptical about...

And curious now, from your perspective would a mil. box pleat be a more expensive endeavour to hem than a knife pleat?

Then of course, there's the previous 20-22oz wt wool to be considered... ;) Having hemmed a few of these trews I would tend to be a bit skeptical it would even be a viable option for a kilt w/ knife pleats..?

[Barb T]

Well, you're right. I wouldn't try to put a hem in a military box pleated kilt if it were in regimental weight tartan. I was reacting more generally to the idea that you shouldn't ever hem a kilt. While a properly done hem generally won't show, it's a different matterr for a regimental weight kilt, particularly for a military box pleated kilt. Regimental weight tartan is pretty thick stuff, and, yeh, I probably wouldn't recommend it, either.