Nicholas Daley Wrap Kilt

The kilt is the most loaded garment in Scottish dress and one of the most misunderstood. It is a wrapped, pleated length of cloth, worn as ordinary working dress long before it was formalised, banned after the Jacobite risings, revived in the nineteenth century as ceremonial and regimental costume, and attached in that revival to a system of clan tartans that is considerably more recent than most people assume. What was once a way of wearing a large piece of wool became a uniform of belonging, and for anyone standing outside that system it is a closed door.

Daley opens it by taking the tartan out. This kilt is black cotton, which means it carries no sett, no clan, no regiment, and no permission structure at all. What is left is the thing the garment actually is: a wrapped cloth, fastened at the side, that moves in a way trousers cannot. Doing it in plain cotton rather than in wool moves it out of ceremony and into ordinary dress, which is where the kilt began and where he is putting it back.

This is the most direct thing he has done with the Scottish half of his inheritance. A Scottish-Jamaican designer making a kilt with no clan on it is not a subtle argument and it is not meant to be.

We took this because the kilt is the garment Daley returns to more than any other and because the plain black is the one a customer can actually wear. It is also the piece that says most clearly what the house is for, which is treating an inheritance as material rather than as a membership card.

Nicholas Daley returns to the kilt across collections, remade each season in whatever cloth the collection is built on, and the black cotton is the plainest of them.

One hundred percent cotton, made in England. Wrap construction. Colour: Black.

A wrap garment, so the fit is governed by how it is wrapped and fastened rather than by a fixed waist measurement, which makes it more forgiving than any trouser he cuts. Cotton has body and will hold the pleat line rather than collapsing it. Length is a matter of preference and worth deciding in person.

With the Waffle Crew Neck in black and a boot, which is the whole outfit and needs nothing else. Black means it will go with any of the checks above it, which is not true of a kilt carrying a check of its own. This is the one to start with.

Wash cool and hang to dry, or press on the reverse if you want the pleats sharp. Heat sets a crease into cotton permanently, so press only where you want one, and hang it rather than folding it so the pleats stay where they belong. Our fabric care guidance covers the rest.

The Wrap Kilt in green linen is made in Scotland and the Wrap Kilt in turmeric and navy is cut in mohair. The Patchwork Tam O Shanter is the patchworked hat, and the Pleated Trouser in ND Tartan the trouser in the house tartan. There is more on the house on the Nicholas Daley designer page. Everything we carry from Nicholas Daley is listed together.