Stripe/Sett

[NorCalPiper]

I always go for the line or stripe. Gives the kilt a duality thats really fun.

[Brian K]

I always go for the line or stripe. Gives the kilt a duality thats really fun.

I am hoping to acquire my first kilt this year - after I lose another 20 to 25 lbs - and I keep coming back to the idea of pleating to the stripe. The duality Josh refers to is what makes it truly appealing to me.There are setts where you only get the barest hint of some of the more interesting elements of the sett from behind and you see them in full glory from the front. I also like the fact that in some setts you get flashes of a brighter or contrasting color in the swish of the pleats when pleated to the stripe where with pleating to the sett it's all out there all the time from any angle which seems much less interesting to me.

In any event I just have never seen a kilt pleated to the sett that I found truly appealing. It just doesn't look quite right to me and I'm not entirely sure why. Anyone who likes it ought to do it that way, of course, but it just doesn't do it for me.

Regards,

Brian

[Dixiecat]

In any event I just have never seen a kilt pleated to the sett that I found truly appealing

That's an interesting comment. Since pleating to the sett is done in order to preserve the tartan design, are you saying that you don't like tartans?

[Brian K]

That's an interesting comment. Since pleating to the sett is done in order to preserve the tartan design, are you saying that you don't like tartans?

No, I really like tartan (I've designed a couple hundred or so using Scotweb's tartan designer) but I think the duality Josh and I mentioned makes a better looking kilt than having everything look the same all the way around. I think I also like the fact that the same tartan can have multiple looks depending on what stripe you choose as the center of the reveal of the pleat.

Take my avatar, for example, which is a tartan I designed. You could pleat it to the relatively narrow blue stripe in the middle of the bright red portion which would have the effect of making the pleats a bit brighter than the apron. On the other hand you could pleat it to the darker broad stripe composed of multiple blues which would have the effect of making the pleats darker than the apron and would have the added bonus of the bright red color flashing with the "swish" of the pleats when you're in motion. If it was pleated to the sett it would always (or at least usually) look the same all the way around. Little or no variation.

So, while I take a backseat to no one in my love of tartan, I think pleating to the sett gives you many more options for how to use it. Depending on the complexity of the tartan and the size of the sett you could have 2 or 3, or maybe more, kilts of the same tartan - each with a very different look from the rear.

I'm not opposed to pleating to the sett, I just don't find it as interesting or appealing as pleating to the stripe.

Regards,

Brian

[Jock Scot]

To my eyes, tartan that is pleated to the stripe looks far too busy. That might be fine for the military and pipe bands that require that sort of thing, but I am not convinced that effect is required for civilian wear.

[Tobus]

I'm a pleat-to-the-stripe kind of guy. The duality Josh mentioned is why. You can see the full tartan design on the front apron, but the rest of the kilt has a nice appearance and 'flashes' color when you move.

I hope no one is offended by this, but to me, a kilt pleated to the sett looks like a lampshade. It's the same all the way around and just doesn't have any creativity to it. Plus, no matter how perfectly the kilt is made, the exact tartan sett is not going to be perfectly preserved through the pleats. So what you end up with is a distorted sett pattern, especially when walking around.

With a kilt pleated to the stripe, the sett is never distorted because you see it only in its full glory on the flat front apron. The vertical stripes around the sides and back can be very slimming as someone else mentioned, and you can get a lot of variation in themes. For example, my first kilt was Colquhoun, pleated to the red/green/white stripe. When I walk, the blue peeks out from the pleats. The one I'm having made now is the same tartan (albeit in weathered colors), but pleated to the blue/black stripe. So when I walk, the red/green/white will flash. And the overall color theme of each kilt, as seen from the back, will look completely different.

So pleating to the stripe gives you several different themes that you can achieve with the same tartan. If you pleat to the sett, you get just one theme.

To my eyes, tartan that is pleated to the stripe looks far too busy. That might be fine for the military and pipe bands that require that sort of thing, but I am not convinced that effect is required for civilian wear.

Interesting. To me, pleated to the sett looks way busier than to the stripe. A kilt pleated to the stripe looks 'cleaner' in the back.

[Brian K]

To my eyes, tartan that is pleated to the stripe looks far too busy. That might be fine for the military and pipe bands that require that sort of thing, but I am not convinced that effect is required for civilian wear.

Thanks, Jock. I wondered when one of our resident Highlanders would respond to this thread.

It occurs to me that one reason I, and so many of our brethren on this side of the Pond, might prefer pleating to the stripe is that so much of our exposure to the kilt, whether in the media or in person, involves the military or pipe bands. Since this style is what we see most it is what we come to expect and, thus, a preference is developed. Perhaps if I had seen more kilts pleated to the sett I would have a different opinion.

I also can not discount the fact that as someone who enjoys designing tartans that pleating to the stripe appeals to me because it is a way of exploiting different elements of the design for various effects. Anything that makes a design of mine more versatile is going to make me happy. Of course, if someone ever decides to have one of my tartans woven and sewn up into a kilt () I'm going to be pleased no matter how they have it pleated .

Regards,

Brian

[OC Richard]

I almost always prefer pleating to the line/stripe.

I suppose the reasons boil down to:

1) tradtion. Military kilts have always been pleated to the line, and as far as I know early civilian kilts were either pleated to the line or in some cases pleated more or less at random. Pleating to the sett, in other words, seems to be a rather modern idea.

2) variety. You get two "looks" for the price of one, as the kilt rear looks quite different from the kilt front.

3) aesthetics. I usually follow the idea "form follows function". The rear of the kilt is made of a series of pleats. It is not a flat piece of cloth. What is gained by attempting to make it resemble a flat piece of cloth.

BUT... there are two notable exceptions I've come across over the years:

1) the visual effect of some tartans is completely dependant on all the colours being seen at once. For these tartans, no matter which portion of the sett is chosen for replication across the pleats the look of the tartan is severly weakened.

2) if the wrong portion of the tartan is chosen for the pleats, the rear of a kilt can look ugly even if the tartan is a nice one.

The best example is here. This band's kilts are widely disliked around here, though the tartan itself is striking and nice. The tartan combines an extremely rich and vivid blue with a mustardy yellow. But they chose to use the yellow for the pleats, so that the entire kilt rear looks like a dingy mustard. This problem is a major one for a pipe band, as pipe bands compete in a circle with their backs facing the audience. So many people who have heard this band play repeatedly have got the impression that their kilts are an ugly mustard colour. (The rear of these kilts looks more mustardy in person than in this photo.)

[ForresterModern]

Stripes present, and their complexity and proximity to other stripes can be a problem with certain setts. For example, when Bonnie was offering me options for my Allen kilt she showed me a variety of stripe pleating options, but kept running into problems becasue two different colored stripes were close enough together to show up in the pleat, but not close enough such that when the fell was tapered that portions of one or both of them disappeared with the taper higher up on the fell, giving a less than pleasing effect. We could have pleated to no stripe (or the really big blue area in the center of the sett) but then that would have given the horizontal stirped "lawnchair" look that was not pleasing to my eye, and entirely defeated the idea pleating to a vertical stripe of prominence to beging with. The dominant red and white stripes in my Allen are only about 1 inch apart, and that was enough to cause problems with the taper. Pleating to one made the other disappear part way up the fell, in a rather obvious fashion.

jeff

[JSFMACLJR]

What I do not like about pleating to the stripe is that it makes the kilt look "unnatural." The beauty of the tartan, in my humble opinion, is destroyed by playing "cute games" with the rear of the kilt. I don't need flashes of colour brought about by the "swish" of the kilt: the tartan speaks for itself!

Of course these are my opinions. I'll still go around wearing my boring old kilts with no wow factor.