The Kilt is NOT in Crisis

[Riverkilt]

Forwarded my kiltmaker the link to the article about there only being ten kiltmakers left in Scotland. Her response was most reassuring.

"In answer to there are only 10 kiltmakers left in Scotland: (You can quote this if you'd like to)

"Rob McBain trained over 60 kiltmakers in Scotland at the Keith Kilt School. Due to the concentration of them in a relatively small area many have been unable to find enough work. Several kiltmakers still are working though and not all chose to become members of the Traditional Kiltmakers' Guild. The handful of American students who did attend the school did not receive their certificates choosing to spend from 4 days to two weeks at the school. All of the kilt school trained kiltmakers do not participate in the chat rooms and only a couple have a website. We do support each other and if someone has no work the others will often step forward to help.

The kilt quality labels developed in the industry appeared when the kilt school began to graduate students who could use the labels from the kilt school. This explains the article by the Herald Scotland of the fewer than 10 kiltmakers left, they are all in the industry. McBain has referred any interested in kilt school training to the school in the past. Unfortunately it's a much reduced course offered by Ann Grant and it's not open to Americans at this time and only certain Scottish students. Any teaching of kilt school techniques will be offered through seminars by Gail Burfoot, of the Cannan Connection in Canada."

Kathy Lare Kiltmaker
SQA Certified Kiltmaker
Keith Kilt School, Scotland
Traditional Kiltmakers' Guild

[Note: I believe what Kathy means by "chat rooms" is the kilt boards.]

[Tobus]

McBain has referred any interested in kilt school training to the school in the past. Unfortunately it's a much reduced course offered by Ann Grant and it's not open to Americans at this time and only certain Scottish students.

If they're limiting the training of traditional kilt-making methods only to a select few, then they have no reason to complain about it being a dying art. Shame on them.

[Lallans]

I've elsewhere been ranting against the CBC but they do have me as a more or less captive audience and yesterday comedian raconteur traveller Billy Connolly was interviewed by them. Mr C made some interesting observations about kilts in Western Scotland, including how kilt wearers were widely mistrusted when he was a boy (he reminded me of a taunt I had known about but forgotten ("Kiltie kiltie cold bum!") but how he himself nows owns several of the lovely garments. But he did say, as Jock Scott and others have mentioned, that kilts are definitely special occasion garments "weddings and funerals" in Scotland still.

[wildrover]

If the kilt is in any sort of crisis, it's certainly not for lack of competent kiltmakers!

[Riverkilt]

Shame?

Keith Kilt School was open to Americans but during its run only one American attended and completed the course. Not sure there'd be a flood of aspiring American kiltmakers if the new venue accepted them.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Again, I'll remind everyone that the quote in that article was taken out of context. The person quoted was giving a rough estimate of the number of kilt makers still in the business who were trained in the old fashioned way via an apprenticeship under a master kilt maker. He was not including kilt makers who have learned their art via other means (classes, informal apprenticeships, self taught, etc.) None of that was reflected in the article, however, which just goes to show you can't always believe what you read in the media.

In any case, I was at the Keith Kilt School last month and they are now called the Keith Kilt and Textile Center. They have had to expand their focus well beyond kilt making in order to stay afloat because, as the director Linda Gorn told me, there just aren't that many people in the area who want to learn to make a kilt. So I don't think they are exactly turning interested people away. Rather, from my conversations with her, they are experiencing a lack of interested people.

[Tobus]

Shame?

Keith Kilt School was open to Americans but during its run only one American attended and completed the course. Not sure there'd be a flood of aspiring American kiltmakers if the new venue accepted them.

OK, maybe "shame" was overstating it a bit. But my point was that if they're concerned about a lack of people trained in their methods, then closing their school to everyone but a select few is a pretty stupid move.

If Americans haven't shown interest in attending their school in the past, the smart thing to do would be to advertise or try to drum up more interest. Maybe even try a one-time kilt-making course on American soil where they could probably get more students than they could shake a proverbial stick at. Not close it to Americans entirely. What purpose does that serve, other than to say, "you Americans are not worthy to learn our skills"?

I may be way off-base in my interpretation of the situation, but that's how it appears to me. Does anyone know why they closed it to Americans?

[Piglet]

I attended the kilt school a couple of years ago. One of the problems at the time was that the course was changing from one form to another, and while I completed the basic kilt making course, it wasn't definite how long or how many additional courses I would have to undertake to get their qualification.

It also wasn't clear how much it was going to cost, and with a young family, and living at the other end of the country, it just wasn't practical to keep an open ended course going, so the marking out skills (which other than experience was the main thing I didn't learn on the course) I learned from other More experienced kilt makers.

I hope that they have now got a more definite course structure, and then it would be a great place to learn (although I don't know anything about the no Americans thing).