The History of the Scottish Kilt
The first record of the Scottish kilt is from the 16th century, and this was the
great kilt, the beacon or belted plaid, which was a full-length garment whose
The upper half could be worn as a cloak, pulled up over the head or draped around
the shoulder. Prior to the development of the Kilt, as we know it today, there was
an item of clothing known as a “brat” or woollen cloak (also known as a plaid)
which was worn over a tunic. This earlier cloak may have been plain in colour
or in various check or tartan designs, depending on the wealth of the wearer.
Over the course of the 16th century, as wool became more readily available, this
cloak grew to such a size that it began to be gathered up and belted, and this was
the beginnings of the great kilt. These early Scottish kilts were multi-purpose;
they provided excellent protection from the weather and elements, they served
to cover and guard weapons such as muskets worn about the person, they could
be removed and used as a camping blanket, and they served as a marker of
wealth and status depending on their size and material
IN THE BEGINNING
If one were to go back in time and visit the Highlands of Scotland about 1000
years ago, you wouldn’t see anyone wearing anything that even remotely
resembles the modern kilt. The standard garment of the Gael (both in the
Highlands of Scotland and in Ireland) was a tunic called a léine. This is simply
the Gaelic word for “shirt” and the styles varied according to the time
period. Initially it was a rather simple long tunic, pulled on over the head, worn
long by the women and either long or to the knee by the men. By the sixteenth
century the léine had evolved into a rather elaborate garment that was very full,
having sleeves that hung down to the knees, and styles that were either pull-over
or that wrapped around and closed rather like a bathrobe. The most common
colour was saffron, although other colours were possible and they were very
often undyed. Over this, for warmth, a woollen shawl or wrap was often
worn. This mantle was called a brat in Ireland, and in later centuries was called
plaid in Scots Gaelic (the word originally meant “blanket”). Though tartan
was not as common in Scotland then as it was at later times, these wraps could
very well have been of some tartan pattern, as we have archaeological evidence
of tartan cloth being worn in Scotland from the third or fourth century.
THE BELTED PLAID
It is this tartan wrap that would later evolve into the kilt. As stated previously,
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 woollen 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-mór, which means “great wrap,” or breaking-an-fairlead,
which means “tartan wrap.” In modern parlance, they are often referred to as
“great kilts.” The earliest mention of this garment in the historic record comes
from the Life of Red Hugh O’Donnell, written in Irish Gaelic in 1594. This
work describes Scottish mercenaries from the Hebrides being noticeable among
the Irish because of the difference in their dress. The Scots wore their belts
outside their mantles – the belted plaid! This garment was about 4 to 6 yards
long and on average 50” to 60″ wide (made from two lengths of 25” to 30″wide
cloth sewn together). The length of the cloth was simply gathered up and belted
at the waist, with the lower part hanging above the knees and the upper part
being brought up to the shoulders and arranged in any number of ways. There
were many different ways of wearing the belted plaid, and this garment was the
ubiquitous dress of the Highland men during the seventeenth and first half of
the eighteenth centuries (isolated instances of its use can be found as late as
1822, but this was likely for ceremonial purposes – it had long ceased to be a
part of daily dress). The female version was the arisaid, which contained
somewhat less cloth, was worn long, to the ankles, and usually was made from a
white tartan with a wide spaced setting. Tartan at this time is becoming almost
synonymous with Highland Dress, though plaids in solid colours were also
worn (as can be seen in the 1618 portrait of the chief of the Campbells of
Lochawe).
THE PHILLABEG
If the belted plaid is the grandfather of the modern kilt, then the pillage 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. Like the belted plaid, it consisted
of a length of cloth, usually about 4 yards long, but only 25” wide. In other
words, just the lower portion of the belted plaid, without another length of cloth
stitched to it. It also would be gathered loosely into folds and belted about the
waist, the bottom reaching to just above the knee and the top few inches
overlapping the top of the belt. Often another length of cloth (what would have
been the upper part of the belted plaid) would be worn separately over the
shoulders for warmth or protection from the elements. Much speculation
abounds regarding the age of the phillabeg. Most Highland Dress historians
feel confidant in putting its origins towards the mid-to-late seventeenth
century. Certainly, by the early eighteenth century it was in widespread
use. People are fond of recounting the story of how Thomas Rawlinson, an
Englishman, supposedly “invented” the phillabeg in the first quarter of the
eighteenth century. The evidence against these lays in paintings and armorial
bearings that depict men in what appear to be phillabegs that pre-date
Rawlinson. Most likely the feileadh-beag came about as a natural evolution
from the feileadh-mor, and the fashion spread around the Highlands of Scotland
over time, with Rawlinson and others helping it along. The phillabeg was worn
most definitely in the eighteenth century, its use declining after the 1790s when
the tailored kilt was introduced, though it continued to be worn by some as late
as the 1820s.
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. These first tailored
kilts were box pleated to the line. There was no tapering, the pleats were sewn
down about 5 inches, and the length of the kilt was selvedge to selvedge (about
25”). The amount of cloth used was between 3.5 and 4 yards. Tailored kilts for
civilian wear soon followed suit, only these were pleated to nothing (i.e., to no
particular line or pattern), until about 1820 when they, too, began to be pleated
to the line. 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 narrower. In 1853 the Gordon Highlanders became the
first regiment to adopt the knife pleat. By the year 1900 knife pleating had also
become acceptable in civilian kilts and the idea of “pleating to sett” (i.e.
arranging the pleats so that the pattern of the tartan was unbroken) was
becoming popular. 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 kilt maker 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 filmmakers 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.
Tartan
The association of names with tartan designs came about as a result of the
industrialization of the weaving industry. The first commercial, large-scale
producer of tartan cloth in Scotland was William Wilson & Son’s of
Bannockburn. They were the only tartan firm licensed to provide cloth the
Highland Regiments during the period of Proscription (up till 1782). The need
for mass production of cloth to fill large military orders led to the
standardization of colours 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, and
this practice increased greatly in the early nineteenth
century. Why? Marketing, as much as anything else. Why does Ford no longer
make Model Ts and instead now sells Windstar’s and Explorers? The names
sell better. But just as no one today would assume that only people of Cherokee
descent drive Jeep Cherokees, no one then believed that only MacDonald’s
could wear the MacDonald tartan. People would pick out a tartan to wear based
on what they liked, not what their name or supposed ancestry was. In the year
1800 there were perhaps 90 to 100 “named tartans.” Today there are over
- The period of the nineteenth century saw a great rise of interest in all
things Scottish, and the development of a very romanticized notion of Highland
Dress. After the Jacobite uprisings were put down and the Act of Proscription
enforced, the kilt ceased to be a part of the daily dress of Highland
people. 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 now 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 no rules or regulations dictating Highland fashion or tartan
choice. The most “traditional” thing you can do is to select a tartan based on its
appearance rather than its name! However, tartans today do represent things,
whether a clan, family, city, business, or event. Most people choose to wear a
tartan that represents some part of their own heritage. In the end, though, that
choice is completely up to you.
