A BRIEF HISTORY:
The Great Kilt is traditional clothing for men of the Scottish Highlands - it is also known as the feilidh-mhor (large wrap), the breacan-an-feile (tartan wrap), or simply the Belted Plaid.
"Plaid" (or plaide) is the Gaelic word for a blanket, and that's just what the Great Kilt originally was -- a length of heavy woolen fabric worn over the body like a mantle or a shawl that was gathered around your body and belted at the waist. This garment, worn from the the end of the sixteenth century until the beginning of the nineteenth, was the beginning of the kilt as we know it today.
Before the advent of the "clan tartan" system in the nineteenth century, Highlanders wore a tartan based on availability and aesthetics. Today, tartans have a meaning, generally representing clans, families, and districts.
