I finally began work on the kilt at the end of 1999 and completed it in 2000. It is embellished with hand and machine embroidery. By cutting, layering and stripping many different weights and lustres of silk, the explosion of colour was created. The colours for the kilt come from inside my head. The fabrics have all been hand-dyed by myself on the aga".

Jilli Blackwood, 2002

 

'Millennium Kilt'
Silk, leather straps with aluminium buckles
Scottish, Jilli Blackwood
1999-2000

"I first thought of creating the piece on my return from travelling in Thailand in 1990. I bought a Mao hill tribe skirt 'off the back' of the original maker as I wanted to recreate the intensity of the Mao hill tribe embroidery.

 

Other designers have experimented with the colour and pattern of the kilt. Most, however, still draw on the "hyper-masculine" connotations of the kilt by pairing them with leather jackets, thick socks, heavy shoes and other traditional masculine accessories. However, by playing around with the style, design and colour of the traditional kilt, they are transforming it into a statement of fashionability, a badge not of "Scottish" identity, but of "fashionable" identity.

Some of these designers have experimented with the cut and construction of the kilt. For instance, John Stephen, the Glasgow-born tailor famous for putting Carnaby street on the map, created a mini-kilt in 1968. Made out of Princess Elizabeth tartan, it reached six inches above the knee and had a large split up the side. Stephen commended at the time:

"Traditional tartans have some magnificent colour blend. All it needed to put them in the style field was the right cut and styling."

The avant-garde kilt

Scottish men do not consider the kilt a skirt but a distinctive garment in its own right. This is primarily because of its unique design - a pleated section at the back with two overlapping flat aprons at the front.
However, since the 1960s, many designers have produced "fashionable" versions of the kilt in an attempt to blur the lines between the kilt and the skirt.