How the kilt kept its cool

Lately, I have found myself lusting after a kilt. Perhaps it’s to do with the festive season and the cosy allure of tartan – or maybe it’s the Chopova Lowena effect. Since launching in 2017, the London-based label’s pleated skirts have become ubiquitous on the fashion circuit, and should be reaching an even wider audience after winning the New Establishment Womenswear Award at this month’s Fashion Awards. Featuring a wide leather belt, jangly hardware and bold prints, its carabiner skirt – which comes in mini and long versions and retails at between £650 and £1,555 – has been worn by everyone from Dua Lipa to K-pop group Red Velvet, and is almost always sold out.

“It’s utilitarian and feminine but also sexy and really easy to throw on,” says Ssense’s head of digital content Steff Yotka. “I always say a Chopova Lowena skirt is the easiest thing to wear because the skirt does all the styling… You can pair it with the most basic black T-shirt and tights and suddenly you look really dressed up.” Yotka, whose collection of kilts is “in the double digits”, likes the “satisfying, swishy sound” they make. “My wardrobe is all about being able to walk fast on the sidewalk in New York, and a kilt with really intense lug-soled boots is a great way to breeze past people in style.”

First worn in the Scottish Highlands in the 16th century, the kilt became a popular marker of national identity in the 18th following the Jacobite risings. Since then it has taken many guises, from Vivienne Westwood’s thigh-flashing miniskirts to the knee-grazing varieties beloved by the Royal Family (the late Queen wore the distinctive, and highly restricted, grey Balmoral tartan in one of the last portraits she ever sat for in August 2022). Much of its appeal lies in the way it skewers notions of gendered clothing, and suits a wide range of bodies and sizes. Heather Gramston, Browns’ senior head of men’s and women’s buying, points to bold, grungy styles by Burberry (£1,790), as well as “bestselling cult favourites” by Charles Jeffrey Loverboy as being typical of the trend. “It’s refreshing to see how so many designers are reinterpreting the style for a new audience.”  

Burberry silk kilt skirt, £1,790, brownsfashion.com

Chopova Lowena taffeta and tweed Bad Gastien midi carabiner skirt, £805.50

Glaswegian designer Charles Jeffrey, who has been wearing kilts since he was four, creates styles for Loverboy that reference his heritage as well as ‘70s punk and club kid culture. “We would wear them a lot for weddings and family events, so they have always been around,” he says. Fabricated in his signature electric blue and red tartan (from £511), they both celebrate and subvert the traditional ceremonial dress “at a time when we’re all feeling a bit icky about being British,” he says. 

Other off-kilter styles include Shrimps’ Anya kilt (£425), which features contrasting blue-and-green and beige-and-black tartan and a bellow pocket, and Rave Review’s asymmetric skirt patchworked from upcycled vintage kilts (£640). For something more traditional, Acme Atelier’s Andrea Chappell makes lovely classic styles that are all hand-stitched using deadstock fabrics in Scotland (from $1,750, oldstonetrade.com), including The Tilda ($2,000), a black tartan shot with yellow that swings to mid-calf and was inspired by Prospect Cottage, Derek Jarman’s cottage in Dungeness.  

Shrimps wool Anya skirt, £212.50

Acme Atelier for Old Stone Trade wool Tilda kilt, $2,000

They give the effect of feeling a little bit traditional and subversive at the same time

“Kilts are evergreen,” says HTSI’s commissioning editor Rosanna Dodds, who owns four – including a tartan one by James Pringle Weavers that she’s had in her wardrobe for 14 years. “They’re sexy without being ‘pick me’. Kilts are where schoolgirl and librarian meet. They’re smart but not stuffy.” Thanks to the adjustable straps, they grow with the wearer too. But what makes a pleated skirt a kilt? For Jeffrey, it has to include “clasped leather tabs”, while for Yotka, it has to have a flat front and pleats along the back. “I think most things that fashion would consider kilts are actually pleated skirts,” she says. “Though they all give the same effect of something that feels a little bit traditional and subversive at the same time.”

“The pleating has to be done in a certain way,” explains Sam McCoach, whose grandmother worked as a kilt-maker on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, and whose London-based label Le Kilt is a continuation of this heritage. “There’s also a particular weight of fabric that makes it a kilt for me. It’s not necessarily that it’s in tartan but it definitely has to be a good-quality, sturdy fabric.”

Handcrafted in Scotland from British wool and accented with a signature silver safety pin, Le Kilt’s offering runs the full gamut of colours and patterns, though the most popular style is the black Classic 01, an everyday kilt based on the Black Watch kilt McCoach’s grandmother made her as a Royal College of Art student (£400). “It’s quite understated and just fits seamlessly into your wardrobe,” she says. McCoach wears her kilts all year round, pairing them with a white T-shirt in summer and a shearling jacket with Birkenstock clogs in winter. Recently she’s also enjoyed layering her own micro kilts over trousers. The joy of a kilt is that there’s no one way to wear them. Says McCoach: “It is just a super stylish, made to last, completely elevated wardrobe staple.”

Rave Review Eira tartan skirt made from tartan skirts and vintage blankets, €200

Le Kilt wool kilt, £440

“It ultimately comes down to their versatility,” agrees Mahoro Seward, senior fashion features editor at i-D magazine, who owns three Chopova Lowena plaid styles in various lengths and is also a fan of the more deconstructed kilt-y offerings from Comme des Garçons and Junya Watanabe. “They’re also a pretty unthreatening way for men to start experimenting with a more ‘liberated’ sensibility.” For anyone on the fence, he recommends “throwing one over a wide-leg jean”, like A$AP Rocky at this year’s Met Gala. “If he can, so can anyone!”