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I've searched for this answer but haven't found it yet so maybe someone knows for sure.
What size were the original kilts?
I've heard that "the whole nine yards refers to kilts. And then I read that kilts were 12 yards long. But how wide were they. Were they a yard wide too? Which would have made them 36" long and below the knee at the hem. Most kilts I've bought and patterns I've found to make a kilt are from 22" to 25" waist to hem.
So what was the real length from waist to hem of the original kilts.
This also important for a story/novel I'm writing wear kilts are part of the story.
DALederle wrote:I've searched for this answer but haven't found it yet so maybe someone knows for sure.
What size were the original kilts?
I've heard that "the whole nine yards refers to kilts. And then I read that kilts were 12 yards long. But how wide were they. Were they a yard wide too? Which would have made them 36" long and below the knee at the hem. Most kilts I've bought and patterns I've found to make a kilt are from 22" to 25" waist to hem.
So what was the real length from waist to hem of the original kilts.
This also important for a story/novel I'm writing wear kilts are part of the story.
DALederle
I'm certainly no expert, but IIRC there have been whole books written about the history and variety of kilts. There was probably no "original kilt", and the various early kilts differed from each other and very markedly from the modern kilt. Fabric didn't come in any standard width bolts; even today there are various widths available. In addition, modern fasteners weren't available.
Perhaps what you're asking about is the original "modern kilt", which is a relatively recent invention.
To continue with what Kris was saying, and to tell you more than you wanted to know:
In the heyday of the Scottish highland clans, they didn't wear "kilts." They wore a plaid, which was simply a long piece of cloth, sort of like a long blanket, which they gathered and belted around the waist by day and wrapped themselves in by night if they were out in the open. (And if you were Rob Roy trying to get away from the Sassenachs, you might take it off and let it float downriver so your pursuers would chase it instead of you.)
Most looms weren't wider than 30", so you'd get a few yards of cloth, cut it in two, and sew it into a double-wide piece of cloth. The "skirt length" depended on how you put it on, and could vary from ankle length to above-the-knee, with the excess draped over your shoulders or tied or pinned to your shoulder to get it out of the way. Knee length would have been practical for highland herders and raiders, as you'd realize if you ever tried hiking for miles through trackless bracken and heather.
The orginal kilts (1700's) were just plaids with the gathering sown in and the top half cut off. They were for Highlanders who had to get jobs in town, so they wouldn't spend all day fiddling with their plaids and getting the top half caught in everything. According to the scholars, they typically had one 3-4 yard piece of single-width cloth. If you've ever made a kilt, you will be aware that 4 yards is plenty. (Kilts made of 8 yards of cloth started out as rich idiots trying to impress other rich idiots.) The kilt length would have been whatever the width of the cloth was.
That seems to be the guy's kilt sales site. He also has articles about kilts and tartans and such, but I can't find any links from the "kilts" site to the article pages.
I suppose it's all down to what time-frame one wants to consider "traditional". If one wants to go back to the genesis of the "great kilt", one needs to recall that there was no such thing as "size" -- each garment was bespoke, and whatever "length" there was was primarily based on what the local looms could produce and how the maker constructed the garment.
The remarkably modern "little kilt" is fraught with "tradition", although most of that is bogus and dates to Queen Victoria's reign. The "length" of the little kilt was based on the width of the loom that produced the fabric, and the length (6 or 9 yards) primarily indicated how much money the purchaser was willing to fork out
It's also worth noting that for a "proper" kilt in modern times, one is expected to produce at least three measurements -- circumference at the waist, measurement around the hips (or arse, just like the girls measure), and length to just above kneecap (or other preferred length). Modern looms can produce vastly wider bolts of fabric than the manually-run ones of old, so you can get a custom length cut for you; otherwise, you can fiddle with where the "waistband" goes but if you do so you run the risk of not having a "real kilt".
"Sizing" is a very modern notion -- and, as I've pointed up a few times (see, "When is a number not a number") common "sizes" can, and do, lie.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
Early on, when they were called "plaids" it was pretty much up to the size of the man wearing it, a plaid for a 6'6" man would certainly dwarf the plaid for a normal 5'6-9" or so man, and so on.
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Story of Life, Perspire, Expire, Funeral Pyre!I've been skirted part time since 1972 and full time since 2005. http://skirts4men.myfreeforum.org/
In reality, the cloth that went into the making of a feileadh-mhor (or belted plaid) was only 25” wide, more or less. The length of cloth was cut in half, and then the selvedge edges stitched together, to get a piece half as long but twice as wide. So, a “nine yard” belted plaid would actually only be four and a half yards long and 50” (or so) wide. They often contained even less cloth than this. Surviving orders for military tartans sometimes request as little as six and a half yards for a feileadh-mhor, meaning the finished product would have been but three and a quarter yards in length.
The trouble arises when a misguided but well intentioned reenactor decides to don the belted plaid with a full nine yards of 60” wide tartan cloth – no wonder people often say the feileadh-mhor was much too cumbersome for soldierly wear.
