Kilted Cultures sews heirloom garments by hand, with custom pleating, tartan advice and in-home fittings across Eastern Ontario.
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Most people who buy a kilt in Canada never meet the person who made it. They might plug their measurements into a website, select a tartan, and wait for a box from Scotland.
Ottawa-area kiltmaker Julie Ricard doesn’t take orders online, but you can book an appointment. She’ll show up to your house with a measuring tape, spread fabric across the kitchen table, and ask questions like, “When you look at this tartan, what do you like about it?” She wants to know what colour catches your eye and what part of the pattern keeps pulling you back. The answers tell her how to make your garment.
“There’s an incredible amount of personality in how we construct a kilt,” said Ricard, who trained in Scotland. She cuts and sews each one herself, using traditional methods and eight yards of wool tartan sourced from mills across the United Kingdom.
Julie and her husband, Tony, run Kilted Cultures, a bespoke kilt business based in Barrhaven and near Maxville. She handles the sewing; he manages fittings and logistics. Julie got her start helping Scottish-born kiltmaker Shirley Stapley, who founded the business as Marshall Bespoke Kilts before passing it on to the Ricards, though Stapley remains on as executive director.
The couple now travels across Ottawa and Eastern Ontario for in-home appointments, often for weddings, Highland dancers or clients trying to match family heirlooms.
Tartan is a patterned wool fabric made up of horizontal and vertical lines in various colours. Some designs are tied to a specific family, region, or military regiment in Scotland. In kiltmaking, the tartan’s pattern determines how the fabric can be pleated. Some clients want bold stripes aligned down the back; others ask for a particular colour to be placed front and centre. The cut and layout of the fabric change depending on those preferences.
The Evening Citizen
Some clients want replicas of a grandparent’s kilt. Others are starting from scratch.
“It doesn’t have to be family oriented,” Tony Ricard said. “We have access to tartans that aren’t tied to a surname.”
District tartans represent regions rather than families. Nova Scotia’s tartan, officially adopted in 1955, was the first of its kind in Canada. Quebec, Alberta, and other provinces have their own. Commemorative patterns mark historic events or shared identities. The Maple Leaf tartan, designed in 1964 and later recognized as Canada’s official tartan, uses red, gold, green, and brown to reflect the changing colours of the maple leaf through the seasons.
Rolling Thunder, a black and blue pattern, was created as a fashion tartan with no historical affiliation. Glen Affric is the opposite. Its sett, or the sequence of colors and lines that repeats across the fabric, was reconstructed from a fragment of wool cloth found in a Scottish peat bog and dated to the early 1500s. It’s believed to be the oldest tartan ever recorded.
The Ricards affirm you don’t need to be Scottish to wear a kilt.
Tony himself is Métis. “I have absolutely no Scottish connection,” he said. What he does have are decades in the Canadian Armed Forces and a working knowledge of dress traditions rooted in military and Highland history.
“Thirty years in uniform, you learn something about regimental dress,” he said. “I reached out to all the major kilt makers in Scotland. I said, ‘Teach me how to dress.’ They literally sold the farm for me.”
He rattles off suppliers like family members — House of Edgar, Lochcarron, Strathmore, Margaret Morrison — and points customers to them directly.
“We’re not gatekeeping,” he said. “There’s nothing hidden here.” When clients ask where to find accessories, he gives names. “You want sporrans? Go to Margaret Morrison. I will sell Margaret Morrison every day of the week.”
A full kilt takes about eight yards of wool, pleated by hand in styles that include military roll, knife edge, block stripe, or a variation shaped by tartan pattern and client preference.
“We can bury colours, highlight colours, and do things with the tartan (and) with the kilt that you’d never realize is possible,” Tony said.
Each garment includes what they call “growth plates,” extra fabric sewn into the seams that allows it to be let out or taken in over time — a practical feature for children, dancers, or anyone expecting to wear the same kilt for decades.
One of the oldest garments to pass through Julie’s hands was a Black Watch kilt made in 1936. Its pleats were still clean and precise, nearly 90 years on.
“That tells you the legs that are on these garments,” Tony said.
That kind of durability isn’t limited to heirlooms, he adds. One client wore his custom kilt every day on a tropical beach vacation. “It repels the water,” Julie said. “If it gets wet, it’s still very warm. Wool is 100 per cent good to go.”
“You can wear it as shorts. You can wear (a kilt) as jeans. You can wear it as dress pants,” Tony said. “I’ve seen kilts dressed right up to black bow tie events, and I’ve seen them dressed right down to Maxville games, walking around with a t-shirt — and it’s the same garment.”
While their tartan is imported, the Ricards keep much of their supply chain local. Matching ties are made by a Nova Scotia seamstress. A North Grenville maker produces trews (traditional tartan trousers). A Campbell-based tailor designs suit components. A custom suitmaker in Ottawa outfits clients for formal events.
“Working with us, your tartan is going to match all the way through because it’s the same bolt,” Tony said. That means an entire family can order garments — kilts, pants, ties, capes — cut from one continuous piece of cloth.
Kilts are not limited to men, although Julie said many people assume otherwise. “They’re 100 per cent for the whole family,” she said. “There’s no women’s version. Women wear the same kilt as men do: same cut, same length, same everything.”
Most brooches, kilt pins and sporrans are imported from Scotland. Prices vary depending on the tartan, accessories and finishing details. Labour alone runs around $700, and full orders can reach $1,200 or more.
“We want to keep prices as low as possible for the clients,” Tony said. “You come and talk to us — chances are we’re going to beat the MSRP you’re seeing online. But the time and skill have to be there.”
“We’re not trying to make this the million-dollar replacement for all things kilt in Canada. We’re trying to satisfy a requirement in the local area. Julie is having fun with it. Shirley’s enjoying it.”
“The day it becomes not fun, we close the door.”
Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.
