In a message dated 2/25/99 1:49:48 PM Eastern Standard Time, rownwald@gte.net
writes:
> I
> know it's considered "cheating" by the purists - but I challenge them to
> convince me that no one ever took the easy way and just tacked those pleats
> in place!
Actually, one form of "cheating" that many people did with their belted plaids
(back when people actually *wore* belted plaids) was to run a draw string
along the waist line. This way the material could be picked up and brought to
waist level, the drawstring pulled tight, and the material would be gatehred
all the way around. They certainly did this on occasion in the 17th and 18th
centuries, but I cannot say weather it was done in the late 16th, as the
belted plaid was only in the very early stages of development.
Even after the shift occurred to the smaller feilidh-beag sometime in the late
1600s and early 1700s, the pleats still were not sewn into place. The first
tailored kilt, with pleats sewn in, would have been in the late 1700s.
Aye,
Eogan Og (who gets paid to know stuff like this ;-)