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“Just look back 15 years to when I started wearing a kilt,” he suggests. Ayre and Jernigan have noticed a marked increase in kilted American men, albeit for varying reasons, which they mainly attribute to a growing acceptance of nontraditional clothing the embrace of gender nonconformity and most significantly, the accessible price point of offerings from the likes of Sport Kilt, Utilikilts and cheap imports from Pakistan, the latter of which can be found for as little as $100 for a box of 10.Īs a result, Kevin Thompson - a 43-year-old author of Kiltology Volume 1: Words of Wisdom for the Kilted Universe and Kiltology Volume 2: A Few Drams Later, a combined 700-page collection of years’ worth of daily posts about kilts - believes there’s “no doubt” we’re approaching peak kilt in America today. Since the turn of the 21st century both St. “That doesn’t happen with a kilt,” he assures me. Ayre, a 50-year-old self-identifying “bi/pansexual” in Lowell, Massachusetts, wears a kilt “seven days a week, 365 days a year, except if I happen to be doing Mad Max cosplay.” The biggest benefit to kilting in his estimation is the lack of wear-and-tear on his wardrobe and nether regions, noting a lifetime of frustration with pants that ride up the crotch and split at the knees. He’s not the only American to have reached this conclusion either - he’s not even the only senior IT specialist. “It’s really hard to put pants back on after tasting that level of freedom.” “That way, it almost feels like I’m wearing nothing at all,” he says with a grin. And so, as a self-proclaimed recreational nudist, Jernigan prefers to complement his nighttime kilt with only shoes and socks and patronize establishments that permit shirtlessness. Plus, as everyone knows, a “ True Scotsman ” wouldn’t be caught dead wearing boxer briefs under his kilt. After all, he says wearing underwear beneath the bottom half of a Great Kilt would essentially transform it into a skirt, since the only distinction between kilts and skirts are that kilts are pleated in the back. For instance, school girls throughout Spain have traditionally worn tartan dresses Indian regiments in the Raj wore kilts and played the bagpipes Japanese fashion has long embraced the kilt and tartan bondage trousers were core to the identity of many London punks.īut again, for Jernigan, the key to kilting is no undies. So Americans are more than welcome to strap one on.” Many other cultures have as well. “While the kilt is indeed part of Scottish identity, it’s for everyone to wear. “ Tartan is ubiquitous and universal,” he answers. I ask Robertson if Americans should be wary of appropriating such a beloved Scottish garment, but he shakes it off. The kilts we see today are essentially the bottom half of that Great Kilt. Originating in the Highlands, Hamilton says the “ G reat Kilt ” was a practical garment whose upper half could be worn as a cloak, draped over the shoulder as a hood, draped over the head or even as a blanket at bedtime. Its significance dates back hundreds of years, adds Alyssa Hamilton with the Kilt Society in Edinburgh. Or regimented, as Scots refer to the practice of commando kilting.Ī brief Scottish cultural history lesson: The kilt was originally a course brown and green woolen blanket, dyed using natural vegetable oils, explains Douglas Robertson, a professor of social sciences at the University of Stirling in Scotland.