Kilt | aaarticle.com

The kilt is the knee-length pleated tartan garment of Scottish Highland dress. The modern small kilt took shape in the eighteenth century from the older belted plaid and, after proscription and revival, became a national emblem.

Overview

A kilt is a wrapped skirt of woollen tartan, pleated at the back and flat across the front apron, reaching to the knee. It descends from the féileadh mòr, a single great length of cloth belted at the waist with the upper half draped over the shoulder.

How it is worn

It is wrapped around the waist with the flat apron to the front and buckled, the pleats sewn or gathered to the tartan sett; a sporran hangs at the front and the surplus of the great plaid was once pinned at the shoulder. The tartan’s pattern came to signal clan and region.

History

The small kilt emerged around the 1720s when the great plaid was divided into a separate skirt. Banned after the 1745 rising, Highland dress was revived romantically in the nineteenth century, helped by royal enthusiasm, and became the enduring symbol of Scotland.