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Kilt suits were worn with a wide variety of skirted garments. We note different styled kilt-skirts. Many were done as long, pleated kilts with a unpleated front pannel. I think this was done to emphasize that the garment was a kilt and not just a skirt. They were a range of other styles, including what look obstensibly like ordinary skirts with no kilt styling, often not even pleats. These were both pleated and plain. We believe that the kilts worn with kilt suits were almost always bodice kilts, but do not yet have conformation of this. This is of course difficult to tell from a photograph. vA clue here is that blouces were nornmally bloused at the waist because the kilt skirt was normally worn with a bodice so shirt tails could not be tucked in. The kilts were usually either plain colors or mute plaids. Some had double breasted styling on the kilt front pannel even though the jacket and vest were single breasted garments.
Kilt suits were worn with a wide variety of skirted garments. We note different styled kilt-skirts. Many were done as long, pleated kilts with a unpleated front pannel. I think this was done to emphasize that the garment was a kilt and not just a skirt that a girl might wear. We believe that the kilts worn with kilt suits were almost always bodice kilts, but do not yet have conformation of this. This is of course difficult to tell from a photograph. A clue here is that blouces were nornmally bloused at the waist because the kilt skirt was normally worn with a bodice so shirt tails could not be tucked in. The kilts were usually either plain colors or mute plaids. Some had double breasted styling on the kilt front pannel even though the jacket and vest were single breasted garments. We see quite a few of these double breasted styled front pannels. This seems to have been the most common kilt styling. Presumably there was some fashion magazine or pattern company influencing the styling. And by the 1870s we begin to see more ready made garments.
It addition to kilt styling, there were other waus to the do the skirt portion of a kilt suit. Mothers could chose what looked obstensibly like ordinary skirts with no kilt styling. These were both pleated and plain. Here some might say that a pleated skirt was a kilt. We have no objection to calling it a kilt, although there were some other characteristics of a kilt. Kilts were pleated, but there were other features as well. Notice that the unpleated checked skirt here has no kilt characteristics like a front pannel (figure 1). We are not quite sure why kilt suits were made with skirts rather than kilts. They may have been less expensive and required less material. They also would have been simpler for home sewers to make. Many American mothers may have not been aware that a kilt was more than a skirt or in other cases not see any particular importance to having an actual kilt garment, especially if was more expensive or require a lot of extra trouble in sewing. We believe that wether or not the the skirt had kilt styling, most mpthers would have referred to it as a kilt. What we are not entiorely sure about is if ready made kilt suits were more likely to produce kilt suits with skirts that had the kilt styling. The plain skirt likt suits may have been more likely to have been sewed at home.
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