Posted on 09/28/2001 6:55:03 AM PDT by SAMWolf
SEATTLE (AP) -- These skirts are not for women.
"The kilt is the most macho of all garments for a man," says Steven Villegas, owner and creator of Utilikilts. "It is like a warrior's garment."
Customers from businessmen to former cowboys have snapped up 2,500 Utilikilts, a "utilitarian kilt" that comes in fabrics from blue denim to tropical prints. Styles vary from a custom-made tuxedo kilt to one for construction workers with loops to hold hammers.
Kilts are free of the restrictions of pants or shorts and offer plenty of air circulation, Villegas notes.
"I think it is the most comfortable thing a man can wear," he says.
Hugh Hunt is the proud owner of four Utilikilts, which he wears to everything from parties to the golf course.
"I am a very practical guy," says Hunt, owner of the Blair, Neb.-based Huntel Co., an Internet-service provider. "These are very practical things. They should replace jeans. They are very comfortable, and they look good."
Utilikilts sell for $87 to $150, and a custom-made kilt can cost several hundred dollars.
The 16-month-old company has yet to make a profit. But Villegas is already planning to spend any profits to fulfill his dream of converting a double-decker bus into a traveling troubadour-style theater.
Utilikilts' nine employees regularly wear kilts to work. Accountant Bill Guerts wears his crisp navy kilt with a proper blue button-down shirt, dark socks and shiny shoes.
Villegas recently moved his kilt manufacturing plant and offices from a garage-size space to a 3,300-square-foot warehouse. Kilt making will be done on the top floor, and a retail shop on the street level will open Oct. 10.
Utilikilts faces growing competition from other American kilt makers, such as Sport Kilts, based in Seal Beach, Calif.
But Villegas isn't worried. He says his patented design includes heavy-duty pockets that always hang right side up and flat, symmetrical pleating, which gives his kilts swing but prevents them from flipping up in a strong wind.
It's a man's own personal decision whether to wear anything underneath, Villegas said.
Villegas slips a stack of business cards in each pocket of his Utilikilts, preferring to rely on word of mouth rather than conventional advertising. His Web site features pictures of devoted customers.
Kilts are "good for morale," declares customer Hunt, who is featured on the Web site with a dozen male company presidents, all wearing black kilts.
On the Net:
www.utilikilts.com
Ewwww! Blah. Somebody post another picture quick!
It takes a real man to wear one.
Aye, lassie, three cheers for personal freedom. The statement above has sound backing in the second and fourth amendmendments tewwwwww.
My ancestry is nearly all Scottish, my Mother being a McDuffie, whose ancestors came from the Hebrides.
My Grandmother was a Morrison. I once mentioned that fact to the Morrison Clan at the highland games at Grandfather Mountain and they gave me a bunch of literature. Turns out the great one, was really named Marion Michael Morrison, and was naturally of Scottish ancestry. I bet he would have died rather than wear a kilt but would have looked great in one.
As an aside, the importance of gender-distinctive dress is a staple of Eastern Christian tradition. Years ago on an Orthodox discussion list, the appropriateness of kilts in church came up, and there was a complete uniform concensus, among Scots converts, Russian Synod traditionalist and "liberals"* alike that kilts are quite suitable for Orthodox laymen in church. (Clergy wear cassocks.)
On the flip-side, one one occasion at Holy Virgin Cathedral in SF, where women in short skirts or pants are given floor-length modesty skirts, my daughter, wearing a traditional Chinese women's outfit which included pants and a mid-length tunic was not given a modesty skirt.
Leftist multiculturalism is a plague (and a potential fifth column since the war is on), and a lie, since it doesn't really respect cultural differences, but tries to remake all non-Western cultures in an anti-Christian leftist mold. Disrespecting real cultural variance among traditional cultures with values we conservatives share is not befitting an American conservative.
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* Liberal in an Orthodox Christian context is still ultra-conservative in any American or Western context.
So sorry the fellow, above, thinks this is pitiful thread.
My ancestors are from Skye and the Outer Hebrides, don't yet know which island. Saw a Presbyterian Church full of fellows that looked just like my dad, but was surfing channels and didn't get the name of the island.
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