Kilts are 支援する, but don't dare call it a skirt 

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Andrea Chappell wears a kilt almost every day, but she won’t 明らかにする／漏らす 正確に／まさに how many she owns. ‘Oh, god,’ she says. ‘No,  I won’t 収容する／認める to that! I 一般に say that the number is より小数の than I need but more than my husband knows I have.’

Chappell, 50, is one of the last remaining 伝統的な kiltmakers in the UK. The 正確な number of professional kiltmakers is unknown, but the charity 遺産 （手先の）技術s 協会 thinks it could be as few as 11.

In 2021, it put kiltmaking on its Red 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） of 危うくするd （手先の）技術s. Three years later, it is still there. 

Chappell started making kilts more than a １０年間 ago. It was, 初めは and partly, a cure for a shopping problem. Having trained in design at Central Saint ツバメs and the 王室の College of Art, she had been living in London creating 展示s. Her 事業／計画（する）s could （問題を）取り上げる to 18 months, and when she finished one she would buy a kilt to 祝う／追悼する the 職業. 

She （売買）手数料，委託（する）／委員会／権限d them from an Edinburgh kiltmaker for around £400 each. ‘It started with a plain 黒人／ボイコット one,’ she says. ‘Next 職業, a plain red one. Next 職業, a denim one. Next 職業, a yellow one. And on it went, and on it went.’

In 2012, Chappell, her husband and two children moved to the Northeast of Scotland. Happily, they lived very 近づく the Keith Kilt and 織物 Centre in Moray ? one of around six organisations in Scotland teaching kiltmaking. Chappell 入会させるd. 

‘I thought it would be a cheaper way of continuing my wardrobe if I just made myself.’ (Cheaper, yes, although 裁判官ing by Chappell’s 拒絶 to count her kilt collection, I’d say that 量 is still an 問題／発行する.)

Kilt school sounds 特に hard-核心. Chappell was taught by Linda Gillies, a master kiltmaker with three １０年間s of experience. You could take a 12-day course where, with the help of Gillies, and for the cost of £600, you finish one kilt.

 But Chappell 手配中の，お尋ね者 to get a 資格 in ‘伝統的な kiltmaking’; it took her two years.

Now she runs a kiltmaking studio, Acme Atelier, has had her designs 展示（する）d at the V&A Dundee and this year was awarded ‘master artisan status’ by the nonprofit Michelangelo 創立／基礎, for her ‘excellence’.

Why is kiltmaking so tricky? 井戸／弁護士席, says Chappell, if you were making a skirt ? ‘even a pleated skirt’ ? you would 削減（する） out individual pieces of fabric and 組み立てる／集結する them using a sewing machine, stitching them together with seams and darts. 

With a kilt, there is no cutting 過程: ‘You are only ever using a 巨大（な） rectangle of eight to nine metres of cloth.’ The goal is to 倍の, pleat and 形態／調整 that ‘one 抱擁する, 抱擁する piece’ of fabric into a 製品 that’s about 80cm or 90cm long.

‘So you’re fighting cloth.’ Lots of kiltmakers work predominantly with tartan; Chappell is いっそう少なく prescriptive. She uses tartan, but also deadstock fabrics, denim, silk, vintage tweed and even wool she has spun herself.

To be a good kiltmaker, Chappell says you need to be the ‘three Ps’: 患者, 正確な, pedantic. I’d 追加する painstaking. In 伝統的な kiltmaking, everything ? each individual pleat, each 選び出す／独身 stitch ? is sewn by 手渡す.

Chappell uses ‘the shortest and thinnest of needles’ (31.5mm long, 0.69mm in 直径) to get ‘the tiniest of stitches’ (around 3mm each). Ideally, she says, you shouldn’t 選ぶ up more than four threads of fabric with every stitch.

A handsewn kilt 普通は takes 30 hours to finish ? as a 最小限. Chappell’s 要求する at least 二塁打 that time: ‘It’s because I make every 選び出す／独身 part.’ She 削減（する）s the leather ひもで縛るs by 手渡す, prints and paints the linings herself and tailors the pleat styles to each 顧客. 

The most ありふれた type of kilt pleat, if you wondered, is a knife pleat. But there are also 軍の roll pleats, box pleats, 二塁打 box pleats, Kingussie pleats ? all of which 需要・要求する different ways of setting out the fabric.

‘It gets to ridiculous 詳細（に述べる） levels, but that’s part and 小包 of the way I like to do it. That’s what people buy into.’

And people really do buy into it. Chappell makes around 50 kilts a year and has a six-month waiting 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる）. She and 見習い工 Emma Wyatt work on four 職業s at a time, 補欠／交替の／交替するing between items throughout the day. 

The pair get so 大（公）使館員d to their 創造s, they give them 愛称s. One 最近の kilt, in a floral fabric, was known as Bloss om. ‘I 定期的に say to （弁護士の）依頼人s, when a kilt has been shipped, “Now, you must tell me as soon as it arrives because this is like me and my children ? I’ll worry about it until it gets home.”’

Chappell’s kilts start at £575 but can cost much more depending on the fabric and levels of customisation. Some requests are personal. A 最近の 買い手 asked for a kilt in memory of her Irish aunt. 

Chappell used a rainbow-flecked yarn from Donegal and embroidered the aunt’s last words into the lining: ‘It’s been fun’. Others are, 率直に, bonkers.

 One male 顧客 was ‘mad on Bjorn Borg’ and ordered five kilts to 代表する the five 始める，決めるs that Borg played against John McEnroe in the 1980 Wimbledon final. In each lining, Chappell painted the scoreboard, with the 顧客’s surname in place of McEnroe’s.

Kilts have been worn in the Highlands since the 16th century and became a 示す of Scottish 身元 after the 18th-century Jacobite risings. (Jacobites loved kilts.) But in the past year, the 衣料品 has become 適切に 冷静な／正味の. 

On the Gen Z-favourite resale app Depop, searches for kilts are up 52 per cent month on month; last May, rapper A$AP Rocky wore a Gucci kilt to the Met 祝祭; last month, Claudia Winkleman sported a Brora kilt on  The 反逆者s and John 吊りくさび has 報告（する）／憶測d a 92 per cent 増加する in searches compared to last year. 

There’s also, strangely, an Instagram account, Kilted Yogis, which 地位，任命するs pictures of a shirtless, kilt-覆う？ man 成し遂げるing yoga 提起する／ポーズをとるs in the Scottish countryside. It has 126,000+ 信奉者s.

によれば Chappell, however, most of these items aren’t kilts ? they’re skirts.

The difference is that the kilt construction 過程 ? using one gia nt piece of fabric and sewing by 手渡す ? is so 明確な／細部. ‘So you can stick buckles on it, you can pleat it and it can be tartan ? but unless you’ve 現実に made it as a kilt, it’s not a kilt.’ Sorry, Claudia.

‘I’m not 存在 derogatory as I feel everybody has an accessible price point and I’m painfully aware that most of what I make is not .’ Chappell just likes to differentiate between ‘what is a （手先の）技術 and what is a fashion 衣料品’. Although, she says, calling a kilt ‘just a skirt’ is about the biggest 侮辱 you can give a kiltmaker. 

‘It’s cutting.’

Kilts can be laborious; Chappell often finds herself looking at 列／漕ぐ／騒動s and 列／漕ぐ／騒動s of pleats and thinking, ‘When will it end?’ Still, she loves them. 

‘There is something about all of that swishing. Or the fact you are closeted in them,’ she says. ‘They are joyful to put on.’

Highland fling