Why kilt invented

Over this, they wore an untailored woollen cloth which also served as a sleeping blanket. The cloth wrapped around and gathered into folds which stopped somewhere below the knee. Sometimes they also wore animal skin, especially deerskin.

So how did the tailored, pleated kilt come to signify Scotland? And why do so many men, Highlanders or not, wear it these days—either to formal events like Christmas and New Year parties, or even daily? Our story begins back to the s. A breacan was to be about 2 yards wide and 4 to 6 yards long. Since looms were usually 28 inches wide, this means that the breacan was 2 lengths of worsted wool sewn together. The wearer wrapped and folded his breacan round his waist, securing it with a leather belt.

The remaining length he draped over the shoulder and fastened with a skewer. Those who could afford them wore tight trousers called trews under the belted plaid. This is considered traditional Highland dress for a man. The kilt was a tailored variant that appeared in the eighteenth century. Some, like Pinkerton, even say that it was invented by…an Englishman.

Pinkerton explains the invention of the kilt as a coincidental event during the occupation of Scotland by General Wade in the early s. An English army tailor called Parkinson had come up to the Highlands from London to see about clothing the troops.

Caught in a storm, he took refuge at the house of a Mr. In the late 17 th century, the small kilt or phillabeg was first worn. This is the bottom half of the kilt, gathered into folds, belted at the waist, and falling just above the knee. A separate piece of cloth was worn over the shoulder for protection and warmth. It became illegal for the Highland regiments to wear garments resembling any form of Highland dress, including the tartan kilt.

In this way, he could see who was supporting the Jacobite position and eliminate them. His ban had the opposite effect. People without Jacobite leanings wore them as a romantic fashion statement.

Others wore kilts to protest general English oppression. The ban was lifted in Thirty-six years was a long time for a useless ban to be in effect. After the ban, the kilt became an enduring symbol of Scottish identity, and tartan patterns represented particular clans, families, and regions.

Today there are 3, specific tartan family plaids. The garment takes 20 — 25 hours to make, they are mostly handmade, and the tartan pattern must remain unbroken. The phillabeg was worn most definitely in the eighteenth century, its use declining after the s when the tailored kilt was introduced, though it continued to be worn by some as late as the s. The universal symbol for the Scotsman—the tartan kilt. The tailored kilt differs from the phillabeg in that instead of simply being gathered and belted on, the pleats in the kilt are actually sewn down.

The first instance that we have of this is in the military in the s. These first tailored kilts were box pleated to the line.

The amount of cloth used was between 3. Tailored kilts for civilian wear soon followed suit, only these were pleated to nothing i. The amount of cloth used in the kilt grew to about 5 yards in the mid nineteenth century, due to the pattern of the tartans becoming larger and box pleats becoming more narrow. In the Gordon Highlanders became the first regiment to adopt the knife pleat. This new form of pleating caused the amount of cloth used in a kilt to grow to six, seven, even eight or more yards of tartan cloth!

There is a myth today that a true kilt should contain 8 yards of cloth—no more, no less. Any kiltmaker worth his salt would tell you otherwise. What determines the amount of cloth in your kilt is the size of the repeat of the tartan, and of course the size of the wearer! The average civilian kilt may have anywhere from 6 to 10 yards of cloth.

And recently kilmakers have begun to also offer options that have 4 yards, a much more comfortable choice that hearkens back to when the kilt was worn as part of the daily dress.

Of course the details of the tailored kilt evolved over time. Waistbands, linings, straps and buckles were added as fashions changed. And what was worn with the kilt changed as well, to reflect the changing fashions of society. We will not delve into such matters as hose, sporrans, bonnets and the like here.

But what about the cloth the kilt is usually made from—the tartan? As stated earlier, archaeological evidence of tartan cloth being worn in Scotland dates from the third or fourth century AD. And the written record attests to tartan being especially characteristic of Highland clothing throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Yes, they likely had certain favorite patterns that they would produce on a regular basis, but they also like any artisan would like to be creative and come up with new, never before seen, individual designs.

Yes, they would certainly use a lot of the colors available with the natural dyes from the region, but they also would have access, through trade, to dyes and ingredients from other places. The association of names with tartan designs came about as a result of the industrialization of the weaving industry.