---
node: garment_kilt
type: garment
slug: kilt
title: "Kilt"
lead: "The kilt is the knee-length pleated tartan garment of Scottish Highland dress. The modern small kilt took shape in the eighteenth century from the older belted plaid and, after proscription and revival, became a national emblem."
published: 2026-08-09
updated: 2026-08-09
image_file: kilt.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Lister_Macneil,_full-length_portrait,_standing,_facing_left,_wearing_kilt_LCCN89706451.jpg"
image_author: "Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress"
image_license: "Public domain"
---

## Overview

A kilt is a wrapped skirt of woollen tartan, pleated at the back and flat across the front apron, reaching to the knee. It descends from the féileadh mòr, a single great length of cloth belted at the waist with the upper half draped over the shoulder.

## How it is worn

It is wrapped around the waist with the flat apron to the front and buckled, the pleats sewn or gathered to the tartan sett; a sporran hangs at the front and the surplus of the great plaid was once pinned at the shoulder. The tartan's pattern came to signal clan and region.

## History

The small kilt emerged around the 1720s when the great plaid was divided into a separate skirt. Banned after the 1745 rising, Highland dress was revived romantically in the nineteenth century, helped by royal enthusiasm, and became the enduring symbol of Scotland.