Third Buckle/Strap

[piperdbh]

I am terribly afraid of harming my kilts, and partly simply because I kind of like the look as well, or am I just accustomed to it?

Yes.

Should I remove the third buckle on one of my 8 yard, 16 ounce tanks and see how I like it, then go from there?

Yes.

Perhaps I should send a kilt to Matthew Newsome and have him remove the third strap and buckle for a reasonable fee, so I don't mess my kilt up?!

Send it to me. I'll do it for an unreasonable fee.

...what am I to do?!

Go get yourself a seam ripper
and take the strap off.

[creagdhubh]

Hahaha! Thanks mate...I have the same seam ripper! I may have a go on one of my 8 yarders and see how I like it.

Cheers,

[Mickey]

I am another who actually likes the third buckle. I like the look. Is it functional? Not for me, as it is usually sagging a bit, as I buckle it loose to keep from pulling the apron. I usually wear a belt, so the top straps are covered, but I just like how the one strap on the side shows. Which is actually weird for me because I'm almost OCD in my addiction to symmetry.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I've got one, two, and three buckle kilts and find them all equally satisfying to wear. In the past, when I've ordered a kilt, I've left the "buckles and belt loops" up to my tailor.

[Bugbear]

* Never mind, too hard to explain... *

[Chas]

Kyle, leave the third buckle and strap. If it is not getting in your way, it is not doing any harm.

I am in the process of getting a hand-tooled strap as a replacement for the third strap on my RAF tank. I am also looking for a suitable silver buckle. Although the other two might be covered up the third will always be on display. So why not make it as good looking as possible?

Regards

Chas

[OC Richard]

I always have just the two straps & buckles.

Maybe it's just the way I'm shaped, but on me kilts hang better without the needless third strap.

I've wondered where the 3rd strap came from, and the idea posted earlier that they originated on extremely high-waisted military kilts makes sense... the third strap might be at around the position the top strap is on low-waisted civilian kilts.



I also wonder WHEN the straps & buckles were added to kilts. I've read that 18th and early 19th century military kilts were held in place by blanket pins, that military kilts of this period exhibit evidence of being repeatedly pinned at the waist.

[Tobus]

I'm not doubting your experience, but please allow me to share my own. Kilts with an external left buckle are certainly the norm, but having owned and worn both styles for years, I can honestly say I do not find either one more difficult to put on than the other, and I can feel absolutely zero difference between the two when I am wearing the kilts.

So why do it?

I first started doing it as a "neat feature" of my kilts. The idea was taught to me by Bob Martin, and he himself saw it used on a kilt from the 79th New York Cameron Highlanders he examined in the Gettysburg Museum. Remember, these kilts were made by New York City dress makers, who had no training as "Scottish kilt makers." The straps they used were actually made from the same tartan cloth as the kilts. And they used an interior fastening structure for the inner apron.

So Bob started to mimic this system with the leather straps of today. And he showed it to me. It just seemed interesting for my "nineteenth century" style box pleated kilts to have a unique strap and buckle arrangement that dated to the nineteenth century, as well.

However, since using that system almost universally for some 500 kilts now, I do have to say I see some advantages to it. And the primary advantage comes when making future alterations to the kilt.

Let's say you need your kilt taken in by 2". No problem. I remove the inside strap, and the outside buckle, and sew them each back on exactly 2" from their original position. Easy-peasy.

It's not quite that clean-cut with the more usual exterior arrangement which requires a button-hole. That button-hole is a stationary feature of the kilt. You can't move the hole (not without some major retailoring of the kilt). So any alterations must work around it. What that would mean, in my above example, is that the leather strap on the inside apron would be resewn in 2" farther from the edge of the apron, which would either mean some significant overhang on the apron edge, or you'd have to rehem the apron itself.

To me, it just makes alterations easier with my method. But to each his own!

That makes perfect sense to me, Matt. The ease of alteration sounds like a good reason for a kiltmaker to prefer that method.

Is it fair to say, though, based on the history of it, that it's purely an American innovation to the kilt?

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

That makes perfect sense to me, Matt. The ease of alteration sounds like a good reason for a kiltmaker to prefer that method.

Is it fair to say, though, based on the history of it, that it's purely an American innovation to the kilt?

I rather doubt that the third strap is some form of Americanization of the kilt; All of my kilts were made for me in Scotland, some nearly fifty years ago; The oldest kilt still in my tin box is probably forty years old, has three buckles, and was made by-- wait, I'll have to go look-- Chalmers of Oban.

[Ian.MacAllan]

. . . With the internal style, though, there's nothing to support the outer apron while I'm putting it on. . . .

Buckling that strap doesn't take a full minute, and it's easy to use the fingers of my left hand to keep the outer apron's weight off the strap's stitching.

. . . But also, if for some reason I want to adjust the left hip strap a notch tighter or looser at some point, I have to undo everything to get to it. An external strap is much easier to get to for adjustment. . . .

Granted, but this is a rare need.

. . . And lastly, by moving it inside, there's less fabric between your hip and the buckle itself, which means less padding. I'm not going to say it's uncomfortable with it inside (I haven't noticed any discomfort), but I could see potential for it being less comfortable having the buckle inside rather than outside.

This might indeed be a consideration if the buckle were directly over the point of the hip, but on Matt's kilts at least it's not---it's more to the right, where it rests on inner apron and flesh.

. . .I just don't understand the purpose of putting it inside. . . .

My principal reason for preferring this arrangement is that my engineering background disposes me to oppose unnecessary holes in fabric. The only advantage I see in having a third strap is that it can provide a matching replacement if one of the important two should break. Such breaks are blessedly rare, but as one of the McAuslan stories testifies, they can happen.

. . . As for the "third" buckle on the right hip, I apparently am in the minority. I like it. . . .

I sincerely believe that nothing worthwhile can be accomplished by arguing about taste. Different horses are indeed appropriate for different courses.

. . . But to each his own!

Amen, Matt, amen.

.