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Posted on Wed, Jan. 15, 2003 |   |
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He's confident to the hilt (and online selling kilts) Michael Butler markets the men's garment as casual wear. The business has begun to break even. Inquirer Staff Writer Please note: It is not a skirt. It is a kilt, the anti-trouser, pleated but undivided, airy, and a little scary. And it is absolutely not about cross-dressing. "It's a men's garment," Michael Butler, co-owner of AmeriKilt Co., said as he stood, 6-foot-4, broad of shoulder, bearded and hairy-legged in a cotton kilt of basic black. "I love the kilt," Butler, 44, said. "When you see a man in a kilt, they look so confident. Their chest is out. They have an air about them." Since he first put on a Scottish kilt a couple of years ago, Butler's confidence in the breezy knee-length fashion has grown so strong that he and his wife, Jeanne, hope to make a living from it. Their six-month-old business, which they run from their home in Abington Township, Montgomery County, makes kilts for casual wear. They average sales of about 15 kilts a week from a Web site, www.amerikilt.com, and at Scottish and Celtic festivals. For the record, Jeanne Butler, 42, wears the pants in the family, and likes the look of a kilt on a man. "They're sharp, really handsome, and women love them," she said. Her husband of 20 years says nothing beats a kilt for comfort, especially in situations like a long, cramped plane ride where pants can pinch. "I would never take an airline trip without my kilt," said Michael Butler, who sports his kilts on errands to the Home Depot, out to the local bistro, and while doing yard work. And what does he wear underneath? Nothing at all, of course. Except in a deep freeze, when tradition gives way. Winter weather demands boxer shorts, he said. "When it's chilly, I tend to wear them." The Butlers said their business had yet to show a profit, so Michael Butler has no immediate plan to give up his day job - where, he concedes, he has not shown up in a kilt. He is art director for Computer Expressions, a maker of computer accessories in East Falls. Jeanne Butler is a full-time nursing student. The couple met when he was a grave-digger and she worked in a cemetery greenhouse. As Celtic music fans, the couple attend folksy concerts that attract a small but fervent band of kilt enthusiasts. After he began wearing one himself, Michael Butler, a graphic designer by trade, decided to fashion his own version. A few other small companies, including Sport Kilt of Signal Hill, Calif., and Utilikilts Co. of Seattle, were already selling low-cost kilts. "We started knocking around designs... and I drew it all out," he said. He Americanized his kilts with belt loops, hip pockets and metal snaps. Their investment has been minimal, the Butlers said. Jeanne Butler buys the fabrics and has the kilts stitched just five at a time by a local garment-maker. They lately have begun to break even, she said, and "nothing is coming out of our savings anymore." When they opened their Web site in July, "we just found this culture on kilts - all over the world, all over the United States. We're even selling kilts to people in Great Britain," Michael Butler said. "It's a thin market, but they're committed." On the circuit of music and cultural festivals, men try on the kilts in the open, the Butlers said. This requires a shopper to wrap a kilt around his waist, then wriggle out of his pants. "They stand there with their pants around their ankles," Jeanne Butler said. "We tell them, 'You can't be shy and wear a kilt.' You should take your pants off to really get the feel for it." "It's a primal thing," Michael Butler said. "It's a throwback. You cannot be bashful when you wear a kilt. It gives you attention from other men, and from women." Instead of the fancy woolen plaid kilts favored by bagpipers everywhere and costing at least $350, AmeriKilts cost about $95 and come in black, green, tan, and a military camouflage that the Butlers say is favored by Vietnam War veterans. And rather than serving as costumes, these kilts are designed for wearing "like somebody would wear a pair of jeans," Michael Butler said. Enthusiasts insist the kilt is just another MUG, or "men's unbifurcated garment," in the spirit of the tunic and the toga, the Middle Eastern caftan, the Japanese kimono, the African dashiki, the pleated Greek fustanella, the Pacific-Rim sarong, and the clerical cassock. "It's no big deal to wear a kilt," said William Parry, a lawyer from Merion Station who sports his kilts on the golf course and almost everywhere but in a courtroom. "It's not so traumatic at all. It's very comfortable. Your friends might rib you a little bit because that's what guys do. But if you're casual about it, and good-natured, it becomes a nonissue very quickly," he said. Parry, 61, maintains a Web site, www.kiltmen.com, and credits Mel Gibson's 1995 Scottish history film, Braveheart - in which defiant warriors lift their hems en masse to flash the enemy - for kicking kilts up the macho scale. Yet even some ardent kilt fans do not see much future for the garment as casual wear. Geoffrey Selling, a Germantown Friends School teacher who has worn a kilt three or four times a week since he took up Scottish dancing in 1969, said he preferred the kilt to pants, and often wore one in public. But, he said, many men who wear kilts at special events will change into them after they arrive, instead of donning the kilt at home. "They don't want to stop for gas, or have their car break down, and be wearing a kilt," Selling said. "They're worried about people making fun of them. There's just enough homophobia in our culture... . I don't see it as getting to be a popular garment for that reason. I'm sad to say that, too." Michael Butler said he already found out that teenagers were not big on kilts. His son, Ian, 13, will not go out in one. In August, the Butlers made the mistake of setting up a stand at the X Games outside the First Union Center, where they had hoped to entice youthful skateboarders into kilts. "It was a total flop," Michael Butler said. "The kids are heavily influenced by what's advertised; but some of the fathers did consider it." Megan Haas, spokeswoman for Utilikilts, the Seattle company that sells 400 to 500 kilts a month - some of them with hammer loops for construction workers - said about half the buyers were over 40. "The older guys are buying it because they've come to a point in their life where they just don't care what anybody thinks; they want to be comfortable," she said. Perhaps "it's never going to be like Microsoft," Michael Butler said of his business. But, he added, "it's making a lot of people happy." Contact staff writer Reid Kanaley at 215-854-5026 or rkanaley@phillynews.com. |
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