Rising price of wool to drive up Kilt costs

[saxandpipes]

...

Question for the experts out there... Why is Scottish wool not suitable for kiltmaking? Is it too coarse or something? Why was it good enough a couple of hundred years ago but not today?

Sorry, not an expert, but I would say it has to do with pure numbers. We have around 40 million sheep in New Zealand. (Ok, the stats I am quoting below don't say that exactly, but they are from wikipedia, and might be out of date). Anyway, I guess that the UK alone simply wouldn't have enough wool to supply all the tartan, let alone all the other wool products it would like to export. And Tweed is great, but I think that particular wool wouldn't really sell that well to people who want to wear the particular garment directly against the skin, yes, I think it would be scratchy.

(world sheep populations in millions)

China 136.4
Australia 79.0
India 65.0
Iran 53.8
Sudan 51.1
New Zealand 34.1
Nigeria 33.9
United Kingdom 33.1

Hmmm, anyone else notice something interesting here...

[saxandpipes]

Oh, and I'm really not saying anything about the "quality" of the wool here. Of course Harris Tweed is one of the highest quality fabrics available. Just that that particular wool used is not as soft as many other wool types available... I have no idea if thats to do with the way it's processed...?

[Jock Scot]

Question for the experts out there... Why is Scottish wool not suitable for kiltmaking? Is it too coarse or something? Why was it good enough a couple of hundred years ago but not today?

I am no weaver and I wondered the same thing. The only thing I could think of is that Antipodean wool will contain a proportion(large?) of Marino wool.This type of wool is softer than the Scottish wool I believe and at a pure guess, that is why we, apparently, don't have many kilts, these days, made from Scots wool. I should imagine that Scottish wool would be more suited to be woven into tweed.

[piperdbh]

I should imagine that Scottish wool would be more suited to be woven into tweed.

Hooray for tweed, especially Harris!

[Paul Henry]

Hooray for tweed, especially Harris!

and on the subject of tweed.... excuse the cross posting
Harris tweed

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I had this same conversation with people at a few of the different woolen mills I visited last fall. The answer I got everywhere was simply that the local UK sheep's wool was considered too coarse (i.e. scratchy) for making tartan for kilts. People want a softer, smoother hand to their kilt cloth. And that means Merino wool from Australia and New Zealand.

[tpa]

The answer I got everywhere was simply that the local UK sheep's wool was considered too coarse (i.e. scratchy) for making tartan for kilts. People want a softer, smoother hand to their kilt cloth. And that means Merino wool from Australia and New Zealand.

I got the same answer when I asked that question with the rider that Scottish sheep are considered more attractive that their antipodean cousins. Being neither a farmer nor a sheep "expert", I can neither confirm nor deny that assertion, but it did have me pondering about the source of the information.

[Tobus]

Scottish sheep are considered more attractive that their antipodean cousins

*insert "why do Scotsmen wear kilts" joke here*