Glasgow kilt shops August 2024

[OC Richard]

I had a free morning and early afternoon yesterday here in Glasgow due to the rest of the band not arriving till later.

So I spent a few hours walking around Glasgow which of course included visiting the kilt shops.

I visited McCalls, MacGregor & MacDuff, and Slanj.

The first thing that struck me was how busy M&M and McCalls were. Both had a steady stream of people picking up their orders, with surprisingly large staffs doing their best to cope.

Slanj less so, but they told me that they haven't had that St Enoch Square location very long.

The other thing that surprised me was that I saw the same House of Edgar jacket styles in all three shops. Too bad Edgar doesn't seem to be doing gauntlet cuffs these days, at least on their tweed kilt jackets. (I'm guessing it's because gauntlet cuffs take more fabric and labour to make.)

It was nice to see Cheviot hose in a couple of the shops.

About sporrans, I think the offerings are an improvement over the ugly ubiquitous "semi-dress" sporrans that I've seen here on past trips. But in general the current styles don't do much for me. I don't know if I can put my finger on exactly why.

The sporrans I saw were by Margaret Morrison who as we know is capable of beautiful things, however the styles I like evidently aren't the styles that sell in Glasgow today.

[Troglodyte]

I had a free morning and early afternoon yesterday here in Glasgow due to the rest of the band not arriving till later.

So I spent a few hours walking around Glasgow which of course included visiting the kilt shops.

I visited McCalls, MacGregor & MacDuff, and Slanj.

The first thing that struck me was how busy M&M and McCalls were. Both had a steady stream of people picking up their orders, with surprisingly large staffs doing their best to cope.

Slanj less so, but they told me that they haven't had that St Enoch Square location very long.

The other thing that surprised me was that I saw the same House of Edgar jacket styles in all three shops. Too bad Edgar doesn't seem to be doing gauntlet cuffs these days, at least on their tweed kilt jackets. (I'm guessing it's because gauntlet cuffs take more fabric and labour to make.)

It was nice to see Cheviot hose in a couple of the shops.

About sporrans, I think the offerings are an improvement over the ugly ubiquitous "semi-dress" sporrans that I've seen here on past trips. But in general the current styles don't do much for me. I don't know if I can put my finger on exactly why.

The sporrans I saw were by Margaret Morrison who as we know is capable of beautiful things, however the styles I like evidently aren't the styles that sell in Glasgow today.

Your experience is about what I would expect.

It's sad that the market for small 'boutique' Highland dress outfitters has all but died out, and that those who remain in business have to rely on the same supply sources.

You will find the old-fashioned outfitters in the provincial towns, and some still do their kilt-making and tailoring on site.

These give you the variety needed, but they still seem to buy-in their sporrans in generic styles from the usual sources - it seems a pity to me that these retailers fail to develop a 'house style' for the sporrans they sell, with certain distinguishing features like used to be seen.

[OC Richard]

Exactly.

It's what could be called "the Starbucks effect" especially so as I sit here sipping a Starbucks drink which I could have bought anywhere in the world.

But when I was in Seattle I was determined to get coffee anywhere other than a Starbucks (there are little one-off coffee shops on every street).

Here in Scotland I suppose I would have to go to the Highlands, Inverness perhaps, to find the sort of shop I have in mind.

[Tomo]

If you manage to get over to Edinburgh - maybe drop in at Gordon Nicolson on Canongate when I was last there they had a nice selection of sporrans, mainly from Margaret Morrison but a lot made to their own designs/specification. They also have a great range of hand-made sgianan-dubha.

Most stock jackets will be from the bigger manufactures - but a few places will offer custom tweeds - Slanj used to offer Kirkton Tweed / Lovat Mills jackets but they seam to cut back and standardised their range in the last few years, Nicolson's offers a range of tweed jackets from Lovat Mills

[Troglodyte]

Exactly.

It's what could be called "the Starbucks effect" especially so as I sit here sipping a Starbucks drink which I could have bought anywhere in the world.

But when I was in Seattle I was determined to get coffee anywhere other than a Starbucks (there are little one-off coffee shops on every street).

Here in Scotland I suppose I would have to go to the Highlands, Inverness perhaps, to find the sort of shop I have in mind.

Inverness is home to Duncan Chisholm's wonderful shop - that is easy to find as it is right opposite the castle. And Ben Wyvis Kilts, too, but a few of the old favourites have closed down since Covid.

And the town has plenty on offer if you want to indulge in tartan-and-shortbread tat..!

Market forces, economies of scale, and all that sort of thing has all but killed off the provincial boutique kilt outfitters in recent years, and most of what's available now seems very generic. Sporrans mostly seem to come from you know who, and the range of tweeds available are from the usual suspects.

Aberdeen has a good offering of small outfitters, and is also home to the McCalls chain - their main shop is only a few minutes' walk from the railway station, and is like a department store over three floors. It's worth looking at simply for the fun of it, and their tailoring department and bespoke sporran service is what it must have been like 'back in the day'.

Piob Mhor in Blairgowrie has changed little over the years, and still has its kilt-making done on-site, along with bespoke tailoring for jackets. Excellent quality and finish, from what I have seen, and using tweeds from weavers favoured by Savile Row tailors.

Have fun..!

[John_Carrick]

I always had great dealings with Houstons in Paisley. You could have a look at their website and if anything appeals you could get there quite easily by train or bus

[figheadair]

If you have time and are in the area then have a look at:

Shilling & Fitz, Perth - call ahead

Stewart Christe, Edinburgh

Campbells of Beauly

[OC Richard]

Thanks!

I did spend yesterday wandering around Edinburgh and visiting the kilt shops I had found online, the "usual suspects" as you say.

I hadn't seen Peter's post about Stewart Christie, though it's a familiar name I somehow missed it when looking at shops online.

The most interesting place was Geoffrey Tailor, no longer with a ground-level shop but stairs leading to an upstairs room with a couple pleasant people busy working on online orders and such.

There were dozens of lovely tweed jackets, many one-offs waiting for pickup and a rack of odd one-offs for low prices, the last remaining jackets in tweeds they used to stock. Of course none of those were in my size.

I do have a Geoffrey jacket I bought directly from them. A couple years ago they had listed some ex-hire charcoal Crails on Ebay one of which was in my size.

[OC Richard]

I always had great dealings with Houstons in Paisley. You could have a look at their website and if anything appeals you could get there quite easily by train or bus

Yes I was going to try to get out there if I had time.

With the band I only have two "off days" yesterday spent in Edinburgh and today will be at Vindolanda.

But hopefully rehearsal will end early enough Wednesday or Thursday for me to get out to Paisley before Houstons closes.

[OC Richard]

The end of the visit-kilt-shops tale was Thursday when myself and a couple band-mates took the train to Kilmarnock to visit the McCallum bagpipe factory.

(And it's not a workshop, it's a proper factory, with rows of CNC machines and a couple robots helping the numerous craftsmen and technicians turn out, it's said, around 50 sets of pipes a week, more than some one-man pipe makers do in a year.)

We were given a fascinating and thorough tour of the factory, and ended up in the McCallum showroom which incorporates Ayrshire Kilt Shop.

There were racks of the same House of Edgar and Gaelic Themes kilt jackets with the same 400-pound prices.

But my eye was drawn to a small rack of odd jackets, and in examining these I found an Argyll in my size made in a lovely heavy dark grey tweed with loads of texture and character, so different from the off-the-peg "Arrochar" charcoal tweeds I'd seen in all the other shops.

It fit perfectly, and when I asked the price I was amazed to hear "70 pounds". I bought it immediately, and wore it all day at the Worlds on Saturday.

The only proper labels were ones stating "Made in Britain" and "48R".

Oddly, the care instructions label was hand-written on a sewn-in plain white satin tag.

And there was a sewn-in paper tag stating "McCallum J. McGregor" which suggests that a Mr McGregor never picked up his lovely jacket.