Military Box-Pleats: some questions for the rabble.

[xman]

I don't get it! What do you mean?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7sYNptYjsE

[MacGumerait]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7sYNptYjsE

That was a bit cheeky

[McElmurry]

Similar to measuring for a kilt the import thing is for the kiltie and his kilt maker to be on the same page.

[xman]

That was a bit cheeky

Seemed easier than trying to explain.

[MacGumerait]

QUOTE=xman;1115222]Seemed easier than trying to explain.[/QUOTE]

[OC Richard]

This intricate and rarely seen style is worn by some military regiments

I don't know about the "rarely seen" bit.

As I posted earlier, the majority of the five traditional kilted regiments of Scotland wore boxpleated kilts (The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, The Cameron Highlanders, The Seaforth Highlanders) and today all Scottish soldiers, in all battalions of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, wear boxpleated kilts.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

For the first time I disagree with Matt on anything kilt.
I bought a Miltary (British Army) kilt in a size I cannot wear just to settle in my own mind how a MBP kilt is put togeather.
It is a Reverse Knife Pleat that has the edges folded over and sewn down and is ALWAYS showing the stripe!
"Box pleat" IS A MISNOMER! 6 to 8 yards of tartan goes into this kilt.
I also have a 4 yard BOX pleat that I made, They ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT!
My 3rd kilt is a knife pleat PV in "Pride of Scotland" Tartan and I can see the similarities.
Sorry Matt.

I've really tried to explain this as clearly as I can, and I'm sorry if it is still confusing to some. What you have is a box pleated kilt. Yes, the narrow pleats and the difference in depth between one side and the other makes it look just like "a knife pleated kilt with the edges folded over" which is a pretty good visual description. But I assure you that this is a form of box pleating, just like your four yard kilt is.

Now I do not know how you made your four yard box pleated kilt, so you may indeed have made that kilt an entirely different way than your military kilt is made. And I don't know how the fact that it is pleated to stripe has any bearing on the matter, either.

All I can do is ask you to please go back and re-read my posts. I assure you that the military kilt you have is indeed box pleated.

EDIT.... or maybe not! The way you describe your kilt as having a "reverse knife pleat" reminded me of something I read in Bob Martin's book. Maybe what you have is not a regimental box pleat at all, but something different. See my below post.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

So I went back and looked through Bob Martin's book, All About Your Kilt, because I knew he had a section in there on military box pleats. In his glossary, under box pleats, he has three photos. One he labels "box pleat, original form," and shows a kilt made from I would assume four yards of cloth, where the wide box pleat is about equal depth in both directions. The next photo is labelled, "box pleat, later form," and shows a kilt made from I assume five or six yards of cloth, where there is significant overlap on the inside of the pleats. The pleats are slightly more narrow. Finally, he shows a photo labelled, "current regimental form," which shows a kilt made from about 7 or 8 yards of cloth, with narrow pleats in which the depth of the pleat in one direction is easily four times as deep as in the other. The deep pleat runs to the left.

All three of these are clearly different permutations of the same pleating style.

BUT.... the next entry in the glossary is for a pleating style called "barrel pleat" which he describes thus:

A military term. Also termed piped pleat or caned pleats. This pleat when first sewn looks like a knife pleat. The pleats are then reversed, laid the opposite direction on the inside, and tacked down, thus forming on the outside a twist where the pleat falls free. The pleats thus formed are soft tubes remaining unpressed.

The accompanying photo he shows is of a kilt made from about 7 or 8 yards of cloth, with narrow pleats. It looks for all intents and purposes like a knife pleated kilt, only the knife pleats run to the right -- the opposite of what we would normally expect. He is fanning the pleats out in the photo, and you can see where the pleats open up, that there is a slight twist to them where they are sewn down at the hip. It is subtly different from a box pleated kilt.

I have never made a kilt in this style, but I wonder if some people are seeing these and this is what is causing confusion to some. Left unpressed, as intended, these kilts would look dramatically different from a regimental box pleat, but I can easily imagine the pleats in these kilts getting pressed over time (after all, pleats are supposed to be pressed, right?) which would visually blur the differences in styles.

[LitTrog]

I was not convinced until now how much it relies upon how you look at it. A knife-pleat could be viewed as a "corruption" of the box-pleat (historically speaking) with the right pleat pushed so deeply that the left-hand pleat disappears, right? Wrong?

[David Thorpe]

My can opener is staying in the drawer as earlier promised.