What James Knows

Monica is right. The word kilt means 'to pleat'. Original kilts were not plaid... they weren't even stitched. The wearer had to fold the pleats by hand and then gather them around his waist with a belt. Tartans affiliated with clans have only been around for a few centuries, before that kilts were made out of whatever cloth was available. Irish kilts today are not plaid, but a solid saffron yellow.

I wear kilts exclusively. I started wearing them when I started taking bagpipe lessons and liked them so much I started wearing them all the time. I have a few non-tartan kilts and occasionally get flak from people who are under the misconception that plaid has always been the standard.

The main thing that makes a kilt different from just any skirt is the way that it's tailored. Kilts are cut for a man's hips. If a woman puts on a man's kilt (as opposed to a kilted skirt), the pleats won't fall straight down and, if the cloth is plaid, the pattern will no longer match from one pleat to the next. That's really the only thing that truly makes a kilt a kilt. There are the dorks out there who will claim that in addition to being cut for men and pleated, a kilt has to have x, y or z property to qualify as a kilt. The problem with that is that the kilt has been evolving over the centuries just like pants have. "Traditional" pants had separate legs the needed to be laced together. You just don't hear about that because there aren't 'pants purists' like there are kilt 'purists'.

Thanks S. As I mentioned, I really had no actual knowledge of the topic. It's something that hasn't really been a point of discussion in America, I think.

Also, the idea of "pants purists" is kind of funny to me.

If you would like some information on the history of kilts, to better understand why they don't have to be tartan, then I invite you to visit my site at http://www.your-kilt.com

Kind Regards,

David.

Wow, the kistory of kilts. Thank you for enlightening me in kilts.

My blog is here to entertain as well as educate. The more you know.

Actually i can safely say your Scottish not Irish given the name Ferguson comes from Scotland but arrived in Ulster (Northern Ireland) after the re settlement of Presbyterian farmers from the low lands of Scotland.

A lot of these farmers where barely in Ulster 5 mins before hoping on a boat to America. Presbyterian Scots counted for more than half the American revolutionary army and if it wasnt for the Scottish concepts of freedom and independence there would have been no revolution let alone a deceleration of independence.

"Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

From the treaty of of Arbroath 6th of April 1320

The name might be Scottish, but I'm not. My grandfather was Irish. I've got the pasty skin to prove it.

Im so white im see through and i burn from the breeze of the wind on a hot day lol. If i remember correctly you come from North Carolina. Unless your grandfather was Irish born i doubt 100% you can say your Irish as 6 million of the ppl in that state have Scots and Presbyterian Scot ancestry.

Not from North Carolina. New York. Also, banned again. Please stop posting.