How Many Years in the Switch from Box to Knife Pleat?

[lukeyrobertson]

According to Ken McGoogan's book "How the Scots Invented Canada", 2010., in 1822 King George IV visited Scotland (first reigning monarach to visit Scotland since 1650). Sir Walter Scott was appointed to coordinate the pageantry for the 14 day visit. Scott had requested that any and everyone should wear tartan...and of the over 300,000 attendees, apparently a great number did. McGoogan writes that Walter Scott is remembered as the one who made the kilt and bagpipes icons of scottish identity.

Now for the historians on this forum, I am wondering if that event wasn't pivotal in making the fashion switch from boxpleat to knife pleat complete especially for civilian dress?

[figheadair]

According to Ken McGoogan's book "How the Scots Invented Canada", 2010., in 1822 King George IV visited Scotland (first reigning monarach to visit Scotland since 1650). Sir Walter Scott was appointed to coordinate the pageantry for the 14 day visit. Scott had requested that any and everyone should wear tartan...and of the over 300,000 attendees, apparently a great number did. McGoogan writes that Walter Scott is remembered as the one who made the kilt and bagpipes icons of scottish identity.

Now for the historians on this forum, I am wondering if that event wasn't pivotal in making the fashion switch from boxpleat to knife pleat complete especially for civilian dress?

I very much doubt it. There is no evidence of knife pleated kilts during the Highland Revival (c1780-1840) and all the kilts that survive from the era of the visit are balanced box pleated ones. The first record we have, as Matt mentioned, is some 30 years after the Levee.

[NorCalPiper]

I wonder if this is true....After the proscription laws ended and the kilt was available again, techniques in fashionable construction had advanced greatly. I wonder if by that time, the idea of sewing a kilt in knife pleats would resemble the "old, simpleton" way of pleating the garment. With French couture at an appex at this time, and the broad need for massive kilt orders and wanting to look to date, I wonder if Box Pleating was just the style of the times moving aside anything resembling the unorganized hand pleat of the belted plaid. Sort of like jeans....In the 80's when acid wash straight leg were in vogue, my friends and I would NEVER think of, or be caught dead wearing bell bottoms or boot cut. Fast forward to the late 90's, early 2000's when this style came back with an updated flair. See my point? I'm hesistant to think it was purely economics, although the updated style of box pleating would have been conveniently cheaper.

[Bugbear]

Are there any historical examples of this pleat cheating in the military kilts?

[figheadair]

I wonder if this is true....After the proscription laws ended and the kilt was available again, techniques in fashionable construction had advanced greatly. I wonder if by that time, the idea of sewing a kilt in knife pleats would resemble the "old, simpleton" way of pleating the garment. With French couture at an appex at this time, and the broad need for massive kilt orders and wanting to look to date, I wonder if Box Pleating was just the style of the times moving aside anything resembling the unorganized hand pleat of the belted plaid. Sort of like jeans....In the 80's when acid wash straight leg were in vogue, my friends and I would NEVER think of, or be caught dead wearing bell bottoms or boot cut. Fast forward to the late 90's, early 2000's when this style came back with an updated flair. See my point? I'm hesistant to think it was purely economics, although the updated style of box pleating would have been conveniently cheaper.

You of course make the assumption that the older non-sewn feileadh mor and feileadh beag was knife pleated. There is evidence for the use of a drawstring on th former and it's entirely possible that it was also common practice on the latter in which case the knife pleat, whilst it was probably used pre-c1780, may not have been common. Sewing in the drape/loose box pleat of the drawstring garment would have 'regimented' the pleats allowing them to be set in a uniform way.

Are there any historical examples of this pleat cheating in the military kilts?

Not sure what you mean. Military kilts were always pealted to stripe.

[Bugbear]

slohairt discussed it in his post just before mine.

[Bugbear]

Perhaps I should have stated my question differently.

Does anyone know of a kilt, perhaps in a museum, made in that time period that has the cheating of the pleats slohairt is discussing?

I am talking about a physical example of tailoring from the eighteen-hundreds, and not conjecture about what might have been done.

If that doesn't make sense, I've got problems again, and it's time for me to walk away from this thread.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

All of the kilts I have ever seen from the 1800's have been pleated to stripe. (Excluding the ones from the very early 19th cent. pleated to no pattern).

[Bugbear]

All of the kilts I have ever seen from the 1800's have been pleated to stripe. (Excluding the ones from the very early 19th cent. pleated to no pattern).

Matt, I'm sorry, it's my problem, and I don't know what to do about it. I feel like an idiot at this point.

I'm going to have to take that as meaning that slohairt's "cheating the pleats" is not pleating to the stripe, and there are no examples of "cheating the pleats" from that time period in existence, to your knowledge.

slohairt seems to be saying that "cheating the pleats" is a form of pleating to the stripe, and that is why it is driving me nuts when both you and figheadair answer my question with "they pleated to the stripe."

I was not asking that question from my point of view, I was asking about the two apparently different ways of pleating to the stripe, and if there were kilts from that time that showed the "cheating" method of pleating.


I'm out.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

When John speaks of "cheating the pleats" he is describing a way of pleating to the sett without necessarily having to include a full repeat of the sett in each and every pleat.

As this is a technique used when pleating certain tartans with a large repeat to the sett, and pleating to the sett did not come about until the very end of the nineteenth century, therefore there are no nineteenth century examples (that I am aware of) of kilts pleated this way.

In terms of pleating to the stripe, I suppose one could apply the same term to cases where a kilt was pleated to a stripe that repeated more than once per sett repeat. In this case there are many different examples of Black Watch tartan kilts (and any sett based on Black Watch) where the stripe pleated to is repeated twice per sett so that every pleat contains only half of the sett repeat.

Ordinarily, in a kilt pleated to stripe, each pleat would contain a single repeat of the sett.