Editing Kilt (section)

== History ==
{{Main|History of the kilt}}

The kilt first appeared as the great kilt, the ''{{lang|gd|breacan}}'' or [[belted plaid]], during the 16th century. The ''{{lang|gd|filleadh mòr}}'' or great kilt was a full-length garment whose upper half could be worn as a cloak draped over the shoulder, or brought up over the head. A version of the ''{{lang|gd|filleadh beag}}'' (philibeg), or small kilt (also known as the walking kilt), similar to the modern kilt was invented by an English [[Quaker]] from Lancashire named [[Thomas Rawlinson (industrialist)|Thomas Rawlinson]] some time in the 1720s. He felt that the belted plaid was "cumbrous and unwieldy", and his solution was to separate the skirt and convert it into a distinct garment with pleats already sewn, which he himself began making.<ref>{{harvnb|Thomson|1816|p=150}}.  Thomson also references Culloden Papers p 103, and the Edinburgh Magazine of 1785 in which a letter from Evan Baillie of Oberiachan states this.</ref> His associate, Iain MacDonnell, chief of the MacDonnells of Inverness, also began making it, and when clansmen employed in logging, [[charcoal]] manufacture and iron smelting saw their chief making the new apparel, they soon followed making the kilt.  From there its making use spread "in the shortest space" amongst the Highlanders, and even amongst some of the Northern Lowlanders.{{Sfn|Trevor-Roper|Hobsbawm|Ranger|1983|pp=22–23}} It has been suggested there is evidence that the philibeg with unsewn pleats was made from the 1690s.<ref name="scottishtartans.org">{{Citation |last=Newsome |first=Matt Allen |title=The Early History of the Kilt |url=http://www.scottishtartans.org/kilt.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150321081106/http://www.scottishtartans.org/kilt.html |publisher=The Scottish Tartans Museum |access-date=26 June 2008 |archive-date=21 March 2015}}</ref> The kilt's design continued to evolve over the centuries, adapting to practical needs.