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 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

 a 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 breacan-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