What you say when someone asks, "what's worn under the kilt?".

At some point in the future I will need to get my Highland attire together for when I graduate to competing on the pipes.  For now in chanter class I can wear pants and a nice shirt.  Sadly my current stock of blue dockers and button down shirts are a size, or two, to small.  Sigh.

In the meantime I have been doing some research on Scottish and Irish Tartans.  I'm not Scottish (as far as I know) but I am Irish, and part Sicilian.  My fathers side is the Irish and English, and my mothers side is Sicilian.  Most of the Irish district tartans I don't care for.

I started doing a search for tartans using my Surname "Greene", I didn't have high hopes but oddly enough I found a tartan designed in 1999 for a fellow called "Robert Dodd Greene", aptly named "Greene" better yet I liked the color and pattern.  Below is a small image of the Greene tartan.

Since this wasn't a Stewart, MacCrimmon or Black Watch et al, it was very unlikely that this tartan could be had off the shelf.  Not a problem really, I had the the technical specifications of the tartan from the Scottish Tartans Authority and have contacted a smaller weaver that could do a short run of the tartan.

Tartans can come in single width or double width.  A traditional kilt is made from single width tartan, about 8 yards. It can be more or less than that depending on the depth and type of pleats and your physical size.  Double width tartans are cut down the middle and the kilt maker puts in a hidden seam, generally deep inside a pleat.

The weaver emailed me this morning with the prices.  Oddly enough the single width tartan is 28.50 GBP, or about $57.00 US per yard, the double width tartan is 29.00 GBP, just slightly more.  The catch is that there is a minimum of 20 yards of double width tartan, and only 4 yards for single width.

Yard for yard it is cheaper to get the double width, you just have to commit to more of it.  So for 10 yards of single width it would run about $520 or $1200 for 20 yards of double width.  If I were to go with the double width  would have enough material for at least five 8 yard kilts, way more than I need, or want.

So, it looks like I'll probably just pop for the 10 yards of single width, with tax duty and all that jazz I'll probably be looking at about $600 for just the tartan alone.

Quality kilts generally run from $425 to $500+ and there are some kilt makers that can weave a special pattern for you, and possibly for not that much more than the cost of a standard off the shelf tartan would cost.  I'm going to look into that as well because if I have to spend over $1000 for a kilt I'm going to look for something that is more common and close in design and color to the "Greene" tartan but won't cost an arm and a leg.

Researching tartans is quite a bit of fun though, there are thousands of them.  It takes time to look at them all and as a member of the Scottish Tartans Authority I have access to some of the back ground information on each tartan, makes for very interesting reading.

As for interesting and informative reading, check out the e-publication from a leading Kilt Maker in Scotland, it is a free download and has a lot of great info. You can access it from the link box on the left.