The fundamental issue of going mainstream.. $$ and quality

[M. A. C. Newsome]

When it comes to making a kilt, assuming we are talking about a hand-sewn item (whether an 8 yard kilt, a 4 yard kilt, or anywhere in between) there are going to be more man-hours of labor spent making that garment than any other garment that a man can wear. That fact alone is why a decent, hand made kilt will never be as affordable as a pair of slacks.

You estimated four hours of labor to make a kilt. It takes me a few days, at least, to make a kilt, and that's if I have the time to really work on it for several hours a day. Kiltmakers I know with more years of experience than I have can make a kilt in one day if they had to -- but it would be a very full day.

You'll notice on my web site that I charge $220 for the cut, make, and trim if you supply the cloth. So that $220 incorporates my labor, plus the costs of the buckles, leather straps, lining cloth, thread, etc.

I love making kilts, but the only way I could afford to do it for less than that is if I were to only do it as a hobby and make kilts for family and friends. Which is great, but I've only got so many family and friends who would want a kilt!

Now, I could do it for a lot less if I wanted to use a sewing machine -- and a lot of "casual kilts" are made this way, even those by the major kilt firms in Scotland. But I choose to keep mine a hand-tailored item.

So, economically, you are right. Kilts are never going to be affordable by everyone unless the cost of cloth and the cost of construction is brought way down -- and when you do that, you have to be prepared to make sacrifices on the quality of both.

I think a better way of thinking about this issue is not the bring kilts to the mainstream, daily wear, of a large percentage of the population. That just isn't going to happen. But rather for those of us so inclined to wear kilts, that when we do we treat the garment not as a costume, but as another part of our wardrobe that we can wear in a mainstream, daily wear fashion.

The kilt will remain a special garment -- and well it should! -- many people who choose to wear the kilt are attracted to it for that reason. But it does not have to be limited to the festivals and clan gatherings. I tell people, wear it out to dinner. Wear it to work. Wear it to the theater or to your family gathering. Wear it whenever you want. The more you wear your kilt, the less expensive it will become!

But you will never see it become as common place as blue jeans. I don't think that's the goal of anyone here (Although it would certainly mean more buisness for the kilt makers!)

Aye,
Matt

[Barb T]

Just a quick note about true traditional kiltmaking. When Matt says "a very full day", he means a _really_ full day. If a kiltmaker does not cut corners, does _all_ of the traditional interior construction, and stitches the pleats with fine, close stitches, it is just about impossible to make a kilt in less than 18-20 hours.

I've been making kilts a long time, and I am no slow poke. But I take my kiltmaking very seriously, and doing a really good job on the pleats can't be done at much more than 5 pleats an hour unless the kilt is a small one. That's 5-6 hours just for the pleating. Yes, you can do it faster, but that means fewer stitches with gaps between the stitches, and I'm not satisfied with that. Yes, you can skip the steeking, or the basting to hold the shape, or the rows of tailor stitching to hold the interior canvas, but the kilt won't hold its shape forever. This all takes time. You can save some time by using a machine hemmer if the kilt needs a hem, and you can put the top band on by machine without anyone being the wiser, but using a machine on any other part of the construction shows, and a traditional kilt is a hand-made garment. So....

Anyway, I just wanted you guys to know that, if someone makes a trad kilt by hand, if the workmanship is fine, and if they do all of the interior construction that's supposed to go into a kilt, it is _not_ a 5 hour job, nor is it even a 12 hour job. It is truly a 20 hour job, and that's for someone who works fast, efficiently, and skillfully. First-time kiltmakers learning the process almost invariably take upwards of 40 hours, so you can see what a difference experience makes and realize that someone who takes 20 hours to make a trad kilt is really smoking along in the sewing department.

Frankly, that's what it takes to make kilts that look and swing like these do and and will look like these do for 20 years:

Barb

[beerbecue]

Barb, HI!!! Nice to see you here!!!!!

Just to throw a small wrench into this.....

What of the large houses that sell not only kilts but other items of Scottish attire?

We have all seen their pricing, and many of us would agree that they are unreasonable (e.g., the recent thread concerning the closing of Scottish Lion).

Now if these retailers are making a profit on those items not produced by them, such as sporrans, belts, pins, brooches, etc., isn't it reasonable to assume that part of the labor cost of making kilts is offset by those profits?

I will be the first to admit that I have no head whatsoever for business. So I may be completely mistaken in my reasoning.

Bottom line I guess, is that if the major suppliers, i.e. Hector Russell, Burnetts & Strutch, The Kilt Store, are still charging real value for the kilts, and don't compensate for profits in other areas to lower costs, then custom kilts will never be inexpensive?

Something else I just crossed my mind. What of the kilts used in the rental business? I have been told by two retailers that these kilts are standardized in terms of sizing that is dependent upon waist size. In this scenario, shouldn't these kilts cost less to make because there is no custom sizing? This could mean kilt construction that is akin to jeans, trousers, etc. Standardized sizing should make the process faster and ultimately cheaper, no?

On another note, even making kilts for myself, I have been limited by buying remnant fabric, because I really can't afford retail.

Just my two cents to what has been a fascinating topic.

[beerbecue]

Barb, seeing your kilts always makes me jealous. Such straight lines and great stitching.....

Practice, practice, practice....patience, patience, patience!!!!!

[KiltedBishop]

Quite a fascinating subject, but are we being a bit too sensitive and so losing track?

Possibly to many, certainly myself a kilt is a specific garment-just as a Greek Fustanella or a Fijian's Sulu is a specific garment. A garment linked by form to a certain tribal/clan - ethnic grouping.

However the word kilt appears to have subsumed to itself certain garments that deviate considerably from the original: be it of form and or material. An example would be the Utilikilt.

At this point it gets nasty, I can see every good reason for a man wearing a Utilikilt-for whilst I do not have one, it appears a very practical and sensible garment. However should it be seen as a sensible man's skirt or a kilt?

If it is seen as a man's skirt, then it opens up the argument for other possibly cheaper materials and designs-albeit made for men and entirely distanced from any suggestion of cross dressing.

However if it is seen as a kilt, then all the arguments regarding cost, materials-the use of tartan and so on will persist.

Can I suggest that the time has come to bite the bullet, and consider accepting the fact that all too often what is termed a kilt, is in fact a masculine skirt. A form of dressing that is entirely logical, and good sense.

James

I read somewhere that Steven from UK called them "Man-Skirts" but calling them that would prevent many men from buying them. I have to agree. regardless of the opinions we still have baggage in the definition of words. until such time as that baggage goes away we need to accept the term kilt is growing to encompass more than the "Traditional Scottish Kilt".

[KiltedBishop]

Interesting thread.
There are a couple of glaring errors in your calculations that I'd like to mention.

You listed my price in Canadian ($150.00 CDN is $115.00 USD) and USA kilts ($110.00) in US dollars. Most of the clever lads here would catch that but just in case ...

It takes me a day to make a four yard kilt. I used to do two a day but as you've heard Jimmy tell you, my quality has gone way up since I started making kilts and that extra care takes time.

I'm not going to get into details of what I pay for fabric, labour, or any other aspect of my business, but most of the mistakes in calculations were balanced with opposing mistakes. (ex: too low fabric costs balanced by double wide fabric.)

I like the gist of the thread; you get what you pay for. The lowest cost casual kilts on the market today are from offshore factories. The only way to lower that cost is to find a sweatshop in an even more desperate part of the world.
Casual kilt quality comes with proper construction, good fabric, and custom fitting. There will never be a $50.00 quality casual kilt.

unless some engineering genius comes up with a machine what can cut, and sew a kilt to specs, thus removing the need for hand sewing...but I think we all know that is pretty complicated, and the level it would take to match "hand sewn" detail is cost prohibitive at this point.

[Barb T]

Hi BBQ

I think the answer to the cost issue is largely that the big kiltmaking houses don't pay their kiltmakers much. As Matt does, I charge $250 to make a kilt, plus the cost of the tartan. If I were to contract even with a shop in the US, they would not pay me $250 to make a kilt. I know free-lance kiltmakers in Scotland who are between a rock and a hard place - they would like to custom-make kilts directly for clients, because they make more, but they don't have a client base, so they wind up doing contract work for shops, but they don't make as much.

You also asked about standard vs custom sizes. Well, because kilts are not made from a pattern, it really doesn't matter. To lay out a kilt from three measurements (waist, hips, length) takes only a few minutes, because all you do is measure to chalk the apron edge profile (which you'd have to do even for a standard size) and mark where the pleats will be folded. For a complicated tartan, the latter can take some time the first time you deal with a given tartan, so I guess you could save some time there, but, frankly, I suppose you might save a half an hour at most by laying out a kilt in a tartan you'd done many times before. The rest you have to do anyway, whether it's custom or standard sizes.

Yeh, tartan is really expensive. I think I said this in another post, but part of the issue is loom set-up and labor. Take Lochcarron for instance. They weave well over 500 tartans in different weights, and they don't weave millions of yards of each. An indication of the cost of loom set-up and labor is that fact that double width and single width fabric are essentially the same price per yard (well, not quite, but it's surprisingly close). And the quality is just plain different from the wool fabric that you can buy at Joann Fabrics in the US (if you can even find wool nowadays). Many years ago, when I first learned how to make kilts, Joann's was still carrying the occasional bolt of wool tartan. I bought a nice piece at about $10/yard and made a kilt for my daughter (and won a blue ribbon at the New York State Fair!!). The kilt has held its shape well, but....it's a wool saxony, and it has a perpetual pilling and pressing problem. Scottish tartan is just a different animal - hard, smooth, non-pilling, and holds a great crease.

Well, that's probably more than you wanted to know!!

Barb

[Alan H]

Just a comment here. While I quoted 4 hours to make a "casual" kilt, I by NO means think that any of the kiltmakers on this forum actually do that. Rocky, Bear, King Kilts, Freedom....you guys don't crank out your product in four hours. No way. I figured that it would probably take a full day to mostly machine-sew a casual kilt. I figured on two days or even three for a hand-sewn kilt. Turns out that I was more-or-less right.

The four hours is my totally uneducated guess at what a production house, with bulk fabric slicers, high speed sewing machines, totally standardized patterns and so on could do. It everything were automated as much as possible, sweatshop style, and everything were simplified I'm guessing that a production shop employing 20 people could crank out about a thousand kilts a month. That means each kilt would take roughly four hours. Actually, four hours might be too much. They might need to get it down to 3 hours or less.

You want to know why you can buy a pair of Levi's blue jeans for $26 at Mervyn's or Target or Wal-Mart?

http://www.uri.edu/personal/svon6141...nsweatshop.htm

That's why. They pay their seamstresses less than twenty-five cents an hour, that's why.

http://www.sweatshops.org/news/2004-...he-border.html

http://www.pww.org/article/articleprint/2482/

Buy Bear.
Buy USAK.
Buy Freedom Kilts.
Buy King Kilts (you gotta charge more, dude. No fair having your wife work for less than minimum wage. Charge ten bucks more. Nobody will feel it and you'll actually put some food on the table.)

Buy a Kilt from Barb. Buy a Kilt from MAC Newsome.

Buy a kilt from them because they turn out a quality piece of work at a low, but fair price for what you get and they love what they do and nobody is making some obscene wage of twenty three lousy cents an hour. Wear that garment with pride, knowing what wnet into it and that you did the right thing.[/i]

[Alan H]

Hi BBQ
And the quality is just plain different from the wool fabric that you can buy at Joann Fabrics in the US (if you can even find wool nowadays). Many years ago, when I first learned how to make kilts, Joann's was still carrying the occasional bolt of wool tartan. I bought a nice piece at about $10/yard and made a kilt for my daughter (and won a blue ribbon at the New York State Fair!!). The kilt has held its shape well, but....it's a wool saxony, and it has a perpetual pilling and pressing problem. Scottish tartan is just a different animal - hard, smooth, non-pilling, and holds a great crease.

Barb

Wool at Joannes? Fat chance. Not at the two Joannes around here, that's for sure. To actually buy 4 yards of wool tartan here in the SF Bay area I have to go to San Francisco itself to a specialty fabric store. If you lived outside of a major metropolitan area there's no freaking way you'll find high-quality midweight or heavyweight wool for sale at a fabric store.

Now, JoAnne's did have some nice lightweight Black Watch flannel two weeks ago. I thought about making a head rag out of it, or maybe a tie, but it'd be a disaster as a kilt.

[Barb T]

Yeh, it's been years since Joann's has had any decent wool. They used to carry Pendleton yardage and nice heavy wool coat fabric, but now most of what they carry is bolts and bolts and bolts of tacky pile print and tons of junky crafts stuff. Yecchhh...

There's a store near Washington, DC call G Street Fabrics, and they have truly fab wool in all kinds of weights from men's suits to pea coat weight, including some tartan. But, it's at _least_ as expensive as Scottish tartan. Not much mass market, I guess...

Cheers,

Barb