A History of Kilt Wearing Through Time

Quick overview of the history of Kilt wearing through time.

Presented by Wes and Terri Malone

The noun kilt comes from the Scots verb kilt meaning 'to tuck up the clothes around the body'.

The Scots word derives from the Old Norse kjalta (meaning 'lap', 'fold of a gathered skirt')

The history of the modern kilt stretches back to at least the end of the 16th century. The Kilt first appeared as the belted plaid or great kilt, a full-length garment whose upper half could be worn as a cloak draped over the shoulder or brought up over the head as a hood. The small kilt or walking kilt (similar to the modern or military kilt did not develop until the late 17th or early 18th century, and is essentially the bottom half of the great kilt.

THE BELTED PLAID 

Tartan cloth dates back to at least the 3rd or 4th century AD and was used as a wrap over other clothing. It is this tartan wrap that would later evolve into the kilt.

The fashion in sixteenth century Gaelic Scotland was for very full clothing. The idea was the more fabric you wear in your clothing, the more affluent you must be! With the cost of wool dropping towards the end of the sixteenth century in Scotland, the woolen wraps, or plaids, began to grow larger with the fashion. At a certain point, people began to gather these large wraps into folds and belt them about the waist. This is what we call the belted plaid. In Gaelic it was called either feileadh-mor, which means "great wrap," or breacan-an-feileadh, which means "tartan wrap." ln modern parlance, they are often referred to as "great kilts”.

THE PHILLABEG

lf the belted plaid is the grandfather of the modem kilt, then the phillabeg is the father.

Phillabeg is the Anglicized spelling of the Gaelic feileadh-beag, which means, "little wrap." It refers to the garment that is essentially the lower half of the belted plaid. Many today use "phillabeg" to refer to the modern tailored kilt, but the original phillabeg was untailored.

Much speculation abounds regarding the age of the phillabeg. Most Highland Dress Historians feel confident in putting its origins towards the mid-to-late seventeenth century.

THE KILT

Now we come to it. 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 1790s. Tailored kilts for civilian wear soon followed. The tailored kilt was adopted by the Highland regiments of the British Army, and the military kilt and its formalized accessories passed into civilian usage during the early 19th century and have remained popular ever since.

The earliest example of a tailored kilt is from c. 1796 (currently in the possession of the Scottish Tartans Authority). A regimental kilt of the Gordon Highlanders (92nd Regiment of Foot) from c. 1817 still survives in remarkable condition at the National Army Museum

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 kiltmakers 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.

AND THE TARTAN

Now we have a nutshell history of the kilt. 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. But were these "clan tartans" as we know them today?

The short answer is, "No!" The first thing to realize about this early tartan cloth is that it was all being hand woven by individual weavers in their own homes or small cottage businesses. 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. ln short, the colors and designs of the tartan varied greatly, and nothing like a "clan tartan" system had even been conceived of, let alone put into practice. Although earlier patterns may have been associated with areas.

The association of names with tartan designs came about as a result of the industrialization of the weaving industry. The first commercial, largescale producer of tartan cloth in Scotland was William Wilson & Son's of Bannockburn. They were the only tartan firm licensed to provide cloth for the Highland Regiments during the period of Proscription (1746 to 1782). The need for mass production of cloth to fill large military orders led to the standardization of colors and patterns for the cloth. These standardized tartans were certainly in use by the 1780s. At first these tartans were simply assigned numbers to identify one from another. But towards the end of the eighteenth-century Wilson's began to label their tartans with names, usually names of towns or districts. At the end of the century family names began to be used. ln the year 1800 there were perhaps 90 to 100 "named tartans." Today there are over 7000.

The period of the nineteenth century saw a great rise of interest in all things Scottish.

The kilt became identified with the whole of Scotland with the pageantry of the visit of King George lV to Scotland in 1822 during which the King dressed in Tartan and was greeted by the people. Scott and the Highland societies organized a "gathering of the Gael" and established entirely new Scottish "invented traditions", including Lowlanders wearing a stylized version of the traditional garment of the Highlanders. At this time many other traditions such as clan identification by tartan were developed.

After that point, the kilt gathered momentum as an emblem of Scottish culture as identified by antiquarians, romantics, and others, who spent much effort praising the "ancient" and natural qualities of the kilt. King George lV had appeared in a spectacular kilt, and his successor Queen Victoria dressed her boys in the kilt, widening its appeal.

The kilt became part of the Scottish national identity and the wider Celtic identity.

Also, during the nineteenth century it was revived as a form of ceremonial dress, and all the trappings that go with ceremonial clothing -- many borrowed from the military -- grew along with the changing fashions of the kilt. Part of this process was the identification of a tartan with the family, clan, or place whose name it bore. This was a development of tradition that was encouraged by the chiefs of the clans. Stripped of any political power, one of the few remaining prerogatives of the chief was what tartan would represent his clan. With people of Scottish descent so scattered across the globe, the use of the "clan tartan" to identify clan members and unify them around a chief served a definite purpose in the new international Scottish community.

Even today, there are few rules or regulations dictating tartan choice although there are customs and traditions as to how the kilt is worn. However, tartans today do represent things such as clan, family, city, etc. Most people choose to wear a tartan that represents some part of their own heritage. ln the end, though, that choice is completely up to you.

Resources: Scottish Tartans Museum, Generations of Highland Dress, The Costume Institute: Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Kilt by Andrew Bolton, and Wikipedia