Kilt Blog

My better half and I recently spent a few days in Santa Fe on a working vacation. We lived in Santa Fe for 6 weeks a few years ago while she studied hypnotherapy, and we know the town. But, often when you live someplace, you do not play tourist. It was really nice to go to O’keefe Museum and bum around downtown.

Everyone who commented loved the kilt. I wore a UK Workmans and my black Denim as well. In Whole Foods (for whom I have no love as a company) I was astounded at the response. In 10 minutes I had no less than 7 people comment on it, one person shook my hand. I missed it, but my wife overheard a man tell his young son, “Yes, he’s wearing a kilt. Just like yours and just like mine back at home.”

Wonderful, though I suppose I would get tired of the attention everyday. In Taos its more laid back, but I did have a nice cute lass shake my hand at the local bar on St. Paddy’s Day.

Santa Fe is so beautiful, I just love this picture.

Much belated due to my lovely wife’s lack of note-taking skills, “Oh, I’ll take notes dear!”, turned out to be a sum total of 12 words… Sigh, 100 years ago I could have given her “the rod” for that. Well, at least I should get past the writers block and share the kilt pictures.

While in Seattle we met fellow blogger Kilted Eric, who also has a quasi-faded podcast about the kilt. Eric is the Production Coordinator for Utilikilts and took us on a wonderful tour of their warehouse, located only a couple hundred yards from their store on Pioneer Square main store.

Pioneer square is part of the old downtown of Seattle, the part with the underground where the original settlement burnt down and was rebuilt. When the town was being rebuilt, due to the sloping ground of the mudflats it was built upon, it was decided to build it a story above the current ground level. But many merchants were not content to wait while the area was filled in, and rebuilt immediately upon the current level. After the fill was added in, there were eventually two sets of sidewalks, one at the old ground level, and one at the new. After a while seedier elements moved into the underground level, then due to an epidemic of rats, the underground was closed (though the seedy elements remained). This is relevant because the utilikilts warehouse is partly in the Seattle underground, which I found incredibly cool.

While on the tour, we saw patterns, a room with giant snap setting and riveting machines, and a room with over a dozen industrial sewing machines. We got to see a custom order kilt being sewn, and most amazingly got to see the over 3,000 Utilikilts stocked in the warehouse. We did observe one shame-filled male employee in trousers , but have kindly left that photo off of the blog since he did at least show us his kilt sitting nearby.

I know that many readers will shudder at the outfit, but for the world of “high fashion” I like this rendition of Highland Dress. Not only the kilt, but the hose, jacket, cap and shoes. The t-shirt and necklace I just don’t get. I’m not saying it is practical, but it is interesting and I hope will help unstick the kilt from the relative rut of special occasion.
This outfit was shown on stage in Milan, as part of “Queen of Punk” Vivienne Westwood’s Autumn/Winter 2008/09 collection.

A while back I blogged a photo of a kilted motorcycle rider. I was a little surprised because most motorcyclists I know are really really anal about “all the gear all the time”, and indeed I have read a dozen newstories about motorcycle accident because a lot of bikers come to New Mexico in the summer. Still I was far more surprised when I was surfing kilt photos on flickr and found a slew of riders wearing the kilt.

• Parade-69 Kilted Biker (pictured)
• Kilted Biker with saltire flag cape
• Kilted Biker on Yellow BMW
• Kilted Biker in the Rain
• Kilted Rider on a Trike
• Kilted Bikers at a Euro Rally
• Kilted Rider on the Grass
• Kilted Motorcycle Ride
• Kilted Ride Rider
• Bodhi Kilted on BWM
• Kilted Riders in Glasgow

I was browsing through kilt photos on flickr and ran across this excellent photo from Kilted Eric of the Podcast - This Kilted Life.

I have received several requests, including one from the bride, to include another picture from the wedding I recently officiated. This is me posing with the groom. Here, we can easily see the inherent superiority of celtic dress, compared to saxon attire

I will say, however, that the saxon clothes are certainly more stylish than a groom’s typical wedding outfit.

Also, I have been asked to perform another wedding in late Spring! It now sounds like I have an excuse to buy a nice wool clergy tartan 8-yard kilt. That’s what I’ve told my wife at least.

On Winter Solstice I officiated my Neo-Pagan Church’s first wedding. I know the bride and groom quite well, and they asked me to wear a kilt. I had planned to get a cheap acrylic Clergy tartan, but they didn’t want me to buy anything just for the ceremony, so I instead wore a Stillwater Kilts Heavyweight Wool in Blackwatch. This was an excellent choice, it has been a cold and heavy winter in Northern New Mexico, and the ceremony was down several miles of unplowed, snow covered roads where I got briefly stuck in a Land Rover. Still the wedding was great fun, and all the more so for being kilted.

As some readers may know, my wife and I are building an off-grid cabin in Northern New Mexico. Today was really the first cold day this Fall. Most people imagine New Mexico as being hot, since it is desert. But what we have is high desert, actually I’m in the world’s largest alpine valley. Winter here can be quite extreme. Today was just a tiny taste of that, about 40F and wind gusts up into the upper 20’s (mph). My black denim utilikilt was quite warm with O Marled stockings from Sock Dreams, a turtle neck and a nice wool sweater.

Another great kilt photo from flikr. I think this makes a lot of sense. Kilts are much more comfortable than trousers or shorts. When you get a tattoo you sit in one place for a long time, you want to be relaxed and comfortable.

I can only suppose that the guy who called it a skirt must have fled by car. Seriously, this is a cool photo.

I came across this picture while looking at kilt photos on flickr. I really, really like the plaid, its very subtle. But I couldn’t find which tartan it is in the Reverse Tartan Search at House of Tartan.

The “kilt” is a bit odd though, either there is no apron or else its on backwards. It has box style pleats, which are not currenty used on traditional kilts, although some of the first tailored kilts of the early 1800’s did use them. Some modern kilts use box pleats too, they generally take less fabric and are lighter in weight.