The OUTRAGEOUS Price of kilts!

[Phil]

I couldn't agree more. The cheap kilts Alan talks about have their place when you might be going to a football/rugby game with a few drinks afterwards but there is no comparison with a hand-made worsted tartan kilt that will last a lifetime and be handed on to future generations (hopefully). I bought a metre of tartan recently and it cost £41 (about $80) to make up a waistcoat. I don't know what the retail markup was but I have always believed you only get what you pay for. If it seems too good to be true then it usually is. Handmade kilts are becoming a rarity now which is a shame but if nobody will pay for these skills then they will be lost forever.

[Robin]

Thank you Alan!

[Rampant Lion]

Excellent post Alan!

That's why I don't mind paying what I did for my latest kilt. I paid more than Alan's calculation because I purchased my kilt through my local shoppe. I was willing to pay more for the added comfort of being measured correctly and having someone to talk to face-to-face if the need is there.

[Nerts]

Thank you Alan!

I second this!!!

E.

[LoftGuy]

Alan,

This Wizzard, lin attached, is widely used in the custom furniture/cabinetry and pattern making trades to determine realistic costs and pricing. Don't see why it couldn't be useful to a kilt maker, as well.

http://www.bridgewooddesign.com/estimator/index.htm

HTH,

Bob

[davedove]

I always understood why kilts were priced so high compared to the mass produced clothing out there. My question, given the cost of the material, is how can the kiltmakers charge so little?

[Alan H]

About the fabric....

How much denim gets sold in this country? I mean, how many millions of yards? I can't even guess.... but go down to Joanne's fabric and you'll pay 8 - 12 bucks a yard for denim. Is denim worn world-wide? Yes. Millions upon millions of yards of denim gets woven every years.....probably over a billion yards.

How about canvas, is that worn world-wide?

How about cotton/polyester twill? How many millions of yards of cotton/poly twill gets made into Dockers pants?

THAT is why denim, cotton/poly twill and suchlike costs $8 - 12 a yard.

Are the Scottish woolen mills ripping us off? Remember, how many wool kilts get made, worldwide, every year? What, maybe 10,000? 50,000? Let's go totally hog-wild and guess that world-wide, there are 100,000... 11, 13 and 16 ounce wool kilts made worldwide every year...not including those for the British military.

That's a lot of kilts! If each of those kilts has four yards of double-width material in them, that's 400,000 yards of tartan. FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND YARDS! Whoooiiieeee!

But wait, how many tartans are there? Um, a quick perusal of www.kiltstore.coms tartan finder reveals that there are over 8,000 different tartans. Let's say that most of those are variants that don't get used much and really the core of kiltmaking...aside from Royal Stewart and Black Watch is about 2,000 tartans. That's reasonable.

So that 400,000 yards of tartan is divided by 2,000. In other words, in a year, the averge tartan is produced in a quantity around 200 yards.

Whoooooaaaaaaaahhhhhh.... two hundred yards?

'cause, see every single one of those two hundred yards has to be set up and run by hand, one at a time, and every single one of them is different. It's not like loading up a loom for "indigo blue denim" for the eighteen-thousandth time. You know, House of Edgar probably only do runs of 40 -50 yards at a time. If they do more than that, they have to keep it around too long.

So, why doesn't tartan cost the same as cotton poly twill or denim?

Answer: because the market for wool tartan is TINY compared to cotton/polyester twill or blue denim.

Next up....you know, the Scottish Mills aren't the only places that make wool cloth. If we look at the First World, then that should give you an idea what the going market it. I mean, there are Italian mills and Canadian Mills and so on.


OK, so first off, go look at the prices for Fraser and Kirkbright. What do their 10.5 ounce wools cost? Answer: $40 a yard....Canadian dollars, which is about $32 in USA dollars. Compare that to the 10.5 ounce Marton Mills wool/poly blend, it's same price. Compare it to the Scottish 10-11 ounce 100% wools, and it's 2/3rd the price, but it's for darned sure not $8 a yard.

OK, how about Pendleton Woolen Mills in the USA?

Look here http://www.pendleton-usa.com/jump.js...ProductID=1042

That's 52 x 74 inch throw. It's $70 . Basically, that's a piece of cloth that's essentially double-width and two yards long...not worsted, mind you, but lambswool. The price is right in there with what the Scottish Mills charge for lambswool.

How about Pendelton wool Fabric?

http://www.pendleton-usa.com/jump.js...2C6%2C42%2C152

That's their "lightweight" fabric. You'll notice that it's $48 a yard.
Here's their heavyweight fabric.

http://www.pendleton-usa.com/jump.js...2C6%2C42%2C153

Son of a gun, but that's $64 a yard.



OK, how about some Italian Mills?

Linea Natural, top-quality Italian wool for Men's suits and slacks...$150 a yard.

http://www.thebensolgroup.com/Italian_Wool.htm

The flat-out truth is that the really inexpensive cloth all comes from Aisa...China, Pakistan, India. A few things come from Central America. It costs more to ship wool to Pakistan than it costs to shear the blinkin' sheep!

http://www.stockmangrassfarmer.net/c...age.cgi?id=650

When kilts and kilt-wearing becomes as commonplace as blue jeans or Dockers, and when the Pakistani's and Indians and Chinese see a market for really high-end wool, then they'll probably make it, and you'll see it for $12 a yard, because the guy that is running that loom makes four dollars a day. Until then, you're NOT getting ripped off. It's just market reality.

[Alan H]

Note...the above is for kilting wool, with a kilting selvedge.

PV is different...lambswool is different....silk is different.

[BEEDEE]

Alan - good, well reasoned and presented data. Well done!!! As to the fabric - don't forget that tartans have multiple colors and specific thread counts that make warping a loom much more labor intensive than warping a single color like denim of cotton duck.

Brian

[mddock58]

About the fabric....

That's exactly what I was saying, It's a combination of Supply/Demand Economics, and the fact that weaving is although automated, it must be set-up by hand, whereas most of the "common fabrics" of today are either not as complex (in weaving), made in HUGE quantity, or printed, dyed, or otherwise processed to receive their "Pattern".

We take for granted the complexity involved in weaving a tartan, and just how uncommon a fabric it really is! (compared to everything else we use)

IF the weavers had the demand by consumers to sell in huge quantity, their costs would decrease, but because we all want our "OWN" tartan, each has to be specially woven, just so a select few can have what they want.

Thanks to the Mills that continue to weave for us!