X Marks changes

[Downunder Kilt]

I think a lot of the posts to this thread have hit the nail on the head.

1.Trends flow like the tide
2. People get into things quite often on the cheap, find that they like it and start to buy quality and upmarket goods.
3. With maturity (as one gets older) people tend to make a choice and stick with it and in my own case, become more conservative. I think this can be seen in many aspect of our lives

Over the last 10 or so years, I have worn jeans far less than I did in my youth. I now prefer to wear the kilt when going out to dinner, movie, well anywhere. When I have to wear p**ts, they are tailored or work ones.
I now dress a lot more conservatively than I did in my younger years.

[Jordan]

This is quite interesting I know myself that I go through periods of preferring contemporary kilts and periods of more traditional ones an example the end of last month I just couldn’t seem to get the feel right when wearing my black Stewart SWK no matter what I did adjusting the belt, sporran or my kilt itself so I swapped it for my UK and other times I’ve looked at myself in my UK before going out and just thought I looked silly and swapped it out for something else it really just depends on my mood. I know there are people on here who have strong opinions on both types of kilts either for or against them and vice versa and I know there are people who much like myself have both and feel that each has its place as for posts I would imagine that the balance fluctuates between "camps" depending on who’s active and what they want to talk about at the time.

Jordan

[davidlpope]

Alan,

What a great topic! It makes me curious to find out how many of those who are kilted:

1) started out with "modern" kilts and switched to "traditional" kilts
2) vice versa
3) still wear the same kilt type (or same ratio of kilt types if you wear both) as they did when they started.

I don't know how to create the poll threads, but that might be a good tool here.

David

[Alan H]

Alan,

What a great topic! It makes me curious to find out how many of those who are kilted:

1) started out with "modern" kilts and switched to "traditional" kilts
2) vice versa
3) still wear the same kilt type (or same ratio of kilt types if you wear both) as they did when they started.

I don't know how to create the poll threads, but that might be a good tool here.

David

That's an interesting thought. Hmmm. I might try that.

[NewEnglander]

Alan,

What a great topic! It makes me curious to find out how many of those who are kilted:

1) started out with "modern" kilts and switched to "traditional" kilts
2) vice versa
3) still wear the same kilt type (or same ratio of kilt types if you wear both) as they did when they started.

I don't know how to create the poll threads, but that might be a good tool here.

David

I started with a Utilikilt mocker (and it was a great way to get comfortable wearing a kilt and I still wear it at least once a week) and now I also own and wear 3 other tartan kilts, 2 casuals from USAKilts and 1 casual from B&S. Sometimes I consider getting another "modern" kilt in a khaki color, but I have to admit that I'm much more drawn to the traditional tartan (though not necessarily the traditional material and waist heights) lately.

[xman]

The question I have is, are people looking to tartan wool more than they were the contemporary kilts a few years ago or have the contemporary kilt wearers begun to disappear, the end of a fad perhaps, leaving behind only the die hard traditional wearers that were already around before?

[OC Richard]

The numbers don't lie, I suppose.

But the fact that we're even having this conversation is evidence of the sea-change which has occured in kilts over the last decade or two.

When I started wearing kilts, 35 years ago, there were no such things as utility kilts and sports kilts and casual kilts etc etc.

If you wore a kilt it was a kilt: 8 yards of 13oz or 16oz tartan wool, handsewn by a traditional kiltmaker. Nothing else existed or was even imagined.

I began attending Highland Games regularly in the mid-1970s and men were walking around in kilts.

I perfectly remember the first time I saw Utilikilts. The Utilikilt company had set up a booth at one of our Highland Games. None of us had ever seen one or heard of one.
99% of the piping community immediately dismissed them as hideous skirts having no relationship to kilts.
But the ordinary Highland Games attendees loved them from the get-go, and today, only a few years later, Utilikilts outnumber traditional kilts at all our local Highland Games.

[Jerry]

All of my kilts are tartan except one black Stillwater heavyweight with the hidden tartan, so it is almost a tartan kilt also. I would sometime like to acquire a non-tartan kilt for wear around our little acreage.

[turpin]

Although I own more traditional than contemporary kilts that is, in part, due to the variety of tartans versus contemporary options (I'm not into multiple camoflage patterns). I like the UK for its versatility, casual, around-the-house-and-town comfort, and washability. I wear tartan to work. I have owned both types from the first year I started kilting, and both have a place.

I think one reason, perhaps, for the surge in traditional kilt posts is the increase in members from the UK in the last 2 years or so. Contemporary kilts aren't as common over there, and we on this side are also interested in "how it is done" on the Mother Ship, so with so many subject matter experts now available there is naturally a surge in posting about it.

BTW, I am 55. But a young 55. And I get a lot of attention from ladies of a younger persuasion when I wear my UK Workman's and boots, so there is a place in my closet for it.

[ggibby]

I was noticing a very similar forum trend, especially when toadinakilt solicited help and advice for his plan to go full-time kilted (FTK), and at least in my survey of the responses, Utilikilts and/or similar pocketed solid-color options didn't come up.

As the owner of 5 UKs and 5 tartan casuals (and more...) I find the pockets and 'less-ethnic' (my apologies in advance) look of the UKs to better suit my daily life. And because of that, the (apparently increasing) tartan topics hold little interest for me on XMTS these days.

Not that I'm going anywhere, and will continue to strongly recommend XMTS to every fella who says "I've been thinking of getting a kilt...", but I do find myself mentally filtering out topics with the words 'tartan,' 'hose,' 'flashes,' et cetera from my reading.

Glad XMTS is here, and hope it will be here for many years to come.