Who wears a Kingussie Pleated kilt?

[Ryan Ross]

Oh yeah, of course, thanks . It was a dumb question really. My only excuse is that it's just past 2am here and I'm not thinking straight! Time for bed I think.

Nah, not a dumb question at all, really. Even Matt had to think twice about that issue, while he was making the kilt, so there's no shame!

[Tommie]

Wait a second here.
The kilt I told you I am making,I turned the pleats toward the rear on each side.
Is this not Kingussie style? If not I wasted a lot of time.
Im making this Kilt for hiking as I stated way back in this thread,and it just made more sense to me that it would not tend to hang on brush as bad if the pleats faced the rear.

Leave it to me to make it wrong.Oh well,I still can use it anyway.

[Ryan Ross]

Wait a second here.
The kilt I told you I am making,I turned the pleats toward the rear on each side.
Is this not Kingussie style? If not I wasted a lot of time.
Im making this Kilt for hiking as I stated way back in this thread,and it just made more sense to me that it would not tend to hang on brush as bad if the pleats faced the rear.

Leave it to me to make it wrong.Oh well,I still can use it anyway.

It sounds to me like you made what people tend to call a "reverse kingussie" style of pleating. While not historical (so far as we know), people who have them seem to say that they are wonderful for hiking/tramping through the brush. Also, many of the "neo-traditional" style of kilts tend to have this arrangement (Utilikilts, etc...).

I bet you'll be very pleased with your kilt, once it's finished, and not find your time wasted at all.

[Pleater]

Don't fret, Tommie, the reverse Kingussie is the best design for hiking - I started out making all my kilts Kingussie style and have remade all but one of them in the reverse way having had to go back and retrieve one from a particularly dense set of bushes. It was a case of leave it behind or rip it free, so I decided to preserve my handiwork at the cost of a few scratches.

[Ryan Ross]

Well, I took the kilt on a test run today, to see how it stands up to heavy wind. There has been a lot of tornadic activity in south Georgia, during the last couple of days, and we're even getting unusually high winds up here.

I've heard a couple of people say that kingussie pleated kilts tend to fly up more than any other. It was no problem at all today, and we were getting 30-35 mph bursts... the higher yardage has something to do with it staying put, I'd imagine.

[Tommie]

Ah thanks guys.So it is still considered a Kingussie even though the pleats are reverse.
Well thats a relief.
Would'nt want to go out wearing something and being told its backwards.

[Ryan Ross]

Ah thanks guys.So it is still considered a Kingussie even though the pleats are reverse.
Well thats a relief.
Would'nt want to go out wearing something and being told its backwards.

Aye, you'll be fine. Your kilt will be pleated the same way as all Utilikilts (and I think several other types of neo-kilt), and there are thousands upon thousands of those in the world! Based on what research I could do, and talking to several people, the true kingussie pleat is much more obscure than the reverse kingussie. I wouldn't be surprized if there were less than 50-100 in the world, honestly (but that's purely speculative)... I only concretely know of 8- One in the Highland Folk Museum in Kingussie, one in the Scottish Tartans Museum in Franklin NC, one belonging to Al Bullman, one belonging to Larry Long, one belonging to another member of this forum (Pleater), two others that Matt has made (he said one of them was in Canada and the other was in Australia?), and my own.

Really, I'd probably be more likely to be told that my kilt was made backwards than you would!

[Ryan Ross]

Just an update. I have the International Tartan Index number.

ITI#7637

The Ryan Ross tartan should be visible in the tartan ferret in about ten days, or so I hear.