Looking to purchase a new first time Kilt.

[The Wizard of BC]

There is an old saying in Real Estate that the most important thing is "Location - location - location".

In Kilt Making the most important thing is "Communication - communication - communication"

If you don't ask about a gazillion questions prior to your purchase - Well, that's your fault.

But if you don't get the answers to your questions, or you don't get timely answers, or you get some long personal opinion diatribe instead of the answer to your question,
- that is their fault. Run, run like the wind and go find someone who will talk with you.

Your kiltmaker should never forget that it is your hard earned money that you are handing over. We sometimes forget in this modern world that kilts are not just about walking into a store, selecting a product from the shelf, paying the sticker price, and walking out.

Yes, there are a lot of websites out there where you select an item from the drop-down menu and then punch in your credit card number. This is rather faceless and impersonal.

Kilts, as you may have figured out from some of the posts on this forum, are very, VERY personal items to our Rabble. The selection of Tartan, fabric composition, weight, method of construction, pleating options, proper fit and proper measuring to achieve that fit, are not things that lend themselves to the standard internet website.

I would actually say that the single most important thing to look for on a website is the "Contact Us" page. Is there a direct telephone number? Is that number answered by a person who you can talk to, ask questions of, and who can give you answers to your questions?
I would even go so far as to say that if you are in the market for a custom kilt and cannot speak directly to the person who will actually be making your kilt I would go somewhere else.

And I'm sorry but facebook is not a good direct two-way communication medium.

Communication - communication - communication.

[ratspike]

It is not that I am favorably to a machine made than hand made, I suppose it is what the consumer wants. I just stated that just because it is hand made, in my opinion doesn't make it better in quality than one made on a machine. I visited a up scale womens clothing factors awhile back and I ask the lady there about kilts, in her words, "we don't make them here but they are very simple to make and any of our women here could make one in less than an hour, it is just a pleated skirt, with straps and buckles, we could sew them with an invisible seam and would take less than an hour, then steam press, so the pleats would stay in." I ask her are you sure in an hour, and she said yes, less than an hour, the pleats would be made on our pleat machine and would take just a few minutes. Alice was her name and she said they made custom clothing, but never had a request for a kilt. So I guess it is just what you want.

I have no doubt they can turn out a kilt-like garment in an hour. A made to measure, machine sewn kilt that's traditional-ish in style, meaning a wide apron and a bunch of narrow pleats, out of a solid color fabric takes me solid day of work. A kilt is much more than a pleated skirt with straps and buckles. Alice may know a lot about garment manufacturing but I'd hazard a guess that she knows little to nothing about kiltmaking.

[manavark]

Alice admitted that they never had a call to make a kilt. But her point was, when all the hullabaloo is over you are talking a wrap pleated skirt, regardless what you call it. A tailor seamstress can take anything and copy it, right down to the last stitch, hide the stitches where they dont show and in the end they will look the same, using the same cloth that is, difference, one by hand, and one by machine. As she told me, we all by cars that are machine made, shirts, towels, almost anything. She had a point, But it is not my concern to how men want their kilts made. Or what they want to pay for them to each their own. But it was somewhat insulting when two of the so call top kiltmakers in the world and I got their names off the xmark, one wanted $970 and the other one wanted $990, probably because I am a newcomer and not so knowledgeable in the kilt market, shows that even the top drawer people will take advantage when they can. Larry

[ratspike]

*headdesk*


Well, okay then. Best of luck with your search.

[McMurdo]

It is not that I am favorably to a machine made than hand made, I suppose it is what the consumer wants. I just stated that just because it is hand made, in my opinion doesn't make it better in quality than one made on a machine. I visited a up scale womens clothing factors awhile back and I ask the lady there about kilts, in her words, "we don't make them here but they are very simple to make and any of our women here could make one in less than an hour, it is just a pleated skirt, with straps and buckles, we could sew them with an invisible seam and would take less than an hour, then steam press, so the pleats would stay in." I ask her are you sure in an hour, and she said yes, less than an hour, the pleats would be made on our pleat machine and would take just a few minutes. Alice was her name and she said they made custom clothing, but never had a request for a kilt. So I guess it is just what you want.

I think you are confusing a skirt with a kilt, the internal fabrication of a hand sewn kilt far exceeds that of the average skirt. As for machine sewn vs Hand sewn, here are a couple of photos one is pleats of a hand sewn kilt the other a machine sewn kilt. I think this shows the difference well.

Hand Sewn:


Machine Sewn:


The hand sewn gets a lot of wear, both of these were bought in 2009 I think, and the hand sewn one will be passed down. In fact my first kilt was my fathers and was hand sewn in Aberdeen in 1950. There is nothing wrong with the machine sewn kilt but you need to decide what function the kilt will serve. For example last night we had our Tartan Tuesday kilt night and I wore the machine sewn kilt as a casual option. However I wore the hand sewn kilt for my wedding.

[Steve Ashton]

I'm sure some others will chime in on this when comments like "shows that even the top drawer people will take advantage when they can." are made.


If you want a $20.00 ladies skirt fine. Go to a skirt maker and buy one.


If you want a kilt that is fine too. But know what goes into a kilt first and before you claim that you are being taken advantage of.


If two kiltmakers, who advertise on this forum, quoted you prices then I can guarantee that the price truly represents the time, effort and materials that go into it.

As the guy who insures that those who advertise here are of the highest caliber, I resent the implication (Hell, screw the implication) that one of them would rip off a customer.

That comment is patently wrong and unfair.

[ratspike]

I'm sure some others will chime in on this when comments like "shows that even the top drawer people will take advantage when they can." are made.


If you want a $20.00 ladies skirt fine. Go to a skirt maker and buy one.


If you want a kilt that is fine too. But know what goes into a kilt first and before you claim that you are being taken advantage of.


If two kiltmakers, who advertise on this forum, quoted you prices then I can guarantee that the price truly represents the time, effort and materials that go into it.

As the guy who insures that those who advertise here are of the highest caliber, I resent the implication (Hell, screw the implication) that one of them would rip off a customer.

That comment is patently wrong and unfair.

After chewing over the OP's comment some more, honestly, it makes me pretty angry. It's poor form for a n00b to come into a community and sling accusations like that. I think an apology would be nice, but that's just me.

[Nathan]

Manavark,

I'm glad you're here and I hope you stick around. I hope you develop a love for the kilt and the traditions from which it was born. I'd like to you to take a step back and consider where this thread is going.

You've come to a place where virtually everyone owns kilts, many of us have a good deal more than one and have first hand experience purchasing garments at a variety of price point and quality levels. A good number of members here are kilt makers some hobbyist and many professional. We even have a couple of renowned tartan weavers in our midst. You will not find an assembled group of people on the planet with more collective knowledge on the kilt than you will in this community.

You've posted a thread asking for input and you have received a lot of it. If you'd prefer to listen to this Alice who admittedly has no experience making kilts and deduces from a quick outward glance that it's just a pleated skirt, be my guest. But if you do decide to take the advice of someone who has never done something over a community of people who own, buy and make kilts and who have no vested interest in sharing their honest experiences with you, I know what I will think of your judgement.

You get what you pay for, my friend. You can search the buyer's remorse threads here as well as the stellar product reviews for hours if you doubt me on that score. If you want a special rare tartan that will cost the kilt maker more to obtain, they will pass that on to you and so would Alice.

I'm not sure what options you asked these kilt makers for but I can assure you that a $970 kilt from them would be a FAR superior custom garment to anything that could be churned out on a machine in an hour. Just pinning up the pleats would take that long.

You can listen to the folks that know or the folks that think they know. The choice is yours.

[MacLowlife]

Tartan fabric costs about 25GBP per yard, or $42.89. Depending on factors we do not know, a traditional "tank" kilt for you will use somewhere between $300 and $425 in fabric alone. Sure, you can shop around and you might get lucky. Sure, you can use lower quality fabric. But if you choose the good stuff, you will be placing $350 or so of materials into the hands of a craftsman. With a couple of hours of tutoring from my mother, I expect I could run a sewing machine and you and I could cobble together something resembling a kilt in less than 10 hours. But it would be an A for Effort project, not a work of art. Or you could get your friend Alice to do it, with her pleating machine ( after convincing her that yes, it really IS supposed to use 8 or 9 YARDS of fabric). And even if she did not have to pay her boss for the use of that machine, I am willing to bet her cut-and-sew price would be a couple of hundred dollars- especially after you made them aware of the risks involved- the cost of replacing that fabric if/when something went wrong.

Let's just go ahead and admit that many of the people on XMarks are not wearing kilts made for them by hand. And many of us aren't wearing kilts made of 16 ounce wool tartan. Or kilts that came to us new from the maker. But how much does "a car" cost? Is that a new Kia or a new Buick, or a new BMW or a new Tesla? Or a 22 year old Mazda, which is what I drive. Having read most of your posts, I do not see that you are particularly interested in getting cheap goods, you just don't want to get ripped off. You have had the advantage of a fair amount of free advice. If you really want to be confident about what you are doing, why not pay someone for an hour of his (or her) time, in which he/ she will teach you about kilts. Ask for examples of box pleating and knife pleating, of pleating to the sett and the stripe, of high and low waists, of accommodation of physical irregularities. Ask them to show you a cheap kilt and why theirs cost more. Ask them to introduce you to people who wear their kilts and let THOSE people tell you a little bit.

And then go ahead and do what you want. Rolls Royce quit true coachbuilding for the bodies of most of their cars in the 1960s. The vast majority of "custom tailoring" is now simply using the customer's measurements and applying them to a stock pattern. Even the made-to-order pizza starts with parameters imposed by the chef or management. All of those things save money or allow the product to be afforded by a wider range of the public. And they allow the goods to reach the consumer a lot faster.

Kiltmaking now spans the broad range from the $20 synthetic souvenir drinking kilt all of the way to the ranges you have mentioned. There are generally reasons for each increment of increased cost and surprisingly few of them have to do with "profit" at the higher end, or even a decent compensation for hours of study and more hours of highly skilled labor. You are buying steak, not sizzle, for the most part and if you prefer McDonald's, you will have plenty of company.

Good Luck.

[MacKenzie]

But her point was, when all the hullabaloo is over you are talking a wrap pleated skirt, regardless what you call it.

Alice is wrong.

But it was somewhat insulting when two of the so call top kiltmakers in the world and I got their names off the xmark, one wanted $970 and the other one wanted $990

What did you ask them to quote?