This is the story of Marion Foster, one of a handful of Scottish artisans who are keeping the 500 year old tradition of kilt making alive. It certainly wasn’t a linear, straightforward path getting to this point though. Here’s our interview where she recounts her career and the bricks she laid along the way. Hal and I first learned this story when visiting Marion at her beautiful home and workshop in Strathearn, Scotland.
BRICK ONE: MAKING A CUB SCOUT UNIFORM
MARION: I had always loved working with textiles and making things from a very early age. Even at five, six, seven I enjoyed textiles and I showed a talent for that.
KATHLEEN: When did you sew your first kilt?
MARION: I sewed in my teenage years. I made all my own clothes. Then I became a Cub Scout leader. As a Cub Scout leader, the uniform was a kilt and a green blouse. I knew that I’d have to make that kilt for me to have that uniform… So I went and got a tartan (a woolen, plaid cloth) and I tried to work it out because there was no patterns for kilts. Then I thought how do you make it fit? You’ve got this thing but how do you make it fit the person? I had to work out the pleating. I managed to make it and wear it That stayed with me all those years. I went on to other things but that stayed in my head.
BRICK 2: SCHOOL — ONE DOOR CLOSES, ANOTHER OPENS
MARION: At school in Scotland, we did domestic science and art in the first and second year. But, if you were academically able, you didn’t continue with domestic science which included sewing and that sort of thing….I think if that had been encouraged more, I would’ve loved to follow that because during my adult years when I continued sewing, I just thought if I had gone back in time, I’d love to have done textiles at university so it was something I looked back on and wished I could’ve done… But when I was at school and subjects were being chosen for a career, there was just no way that my parents would have allowed me to follow domestic science for my future.
MARION: But I suppose that’s part of it, actually — your life experience, your family life. I wanted to leave school as early as I could. Due to those experiences, I didn’t stay on to a sixth year, so I didn’t get the qualifications to take me to medicine as I had wished to.
BRICK 3: UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN BODY THROUGH PHYSICS AND MATH
KATHLEEN: What specifically about radiography was attractive for you?
MARION: I think it was the physics, the physics and the mathematical side of it. I enjoyed that way of working and of thinking…and problem solving and delivering health care. I loved being part of the emergency team and being able to produce diagnostic imagery using photography radiation and physiology…
HAL: How does the science — the exactitude of those scientific skills for radiography — relate to kilt making?
MARION: When I would be taking an x-ray, I’d be looking at the human body in front of me. I’d be thinking about the quantity of radiation and the power behind that when it hit the human body, the attenuation. I’d have to be knowing all about my kilowatts and my voltage and my amperage… When the x-rays went through the body, there would be a plate that had a chemical surface on it that would react differently…depending on what quality of imagery you wanted from it.
I would have to make quick decisions on the spot considering lots of different aspects of the accident and emergency… I also was required to multitask working in remote cottage hospitals: I’d be bringing the patient in, x-raying them, keeping to an appointment system or running into the dark room, putting things through developer, fixer, dryer, checking them, running back bringing patients in… then finishing off, organizing the paperwork to get out the door by a certain time for the radiologist to arrive later and to report on the x-rays.
In kilt making, I have to consider the human body and the shape of it — the anatomy and physiology. And also in kilt making, there’s a lot of precision; there’s pattern matching and measurement as well and working out what would be the impact of how you’re molding the material…With the tartan there’s a pattern of lines and so there’s the imagery there of how I could create a different image with the folding and the positioning of that pattern…It’s not just a paper pattern laying out flat. You’re actually creating a shape and you’re using steam, you’re using pressure and heat through the iron to change and build this garment that’s barrel shaped, it’s not flat. This is an art to create such a garment out of a continuous length of cloth without cutting.
Lots of process and decision making through what one sees particular to an individual.
BRICK 4: BUILDING AND MANAGING A BUSINESS
At the beginning of my adult life, I married a GP (general practitioner) and a couple of years later, when I had my first child, his practice partnership fell through so we ended up having to set up on our own.
It took us two years to build it up to a size that we could take on some more staff, and we were told we weren’t allowed to take on a GP partner ’til we took on three and a half thousand patients. That was a lot of patients to look after by one person who was on call every night… This part of my married life took a huge toll on me as in addition to supporting my husband, developing and managing his practice I was carrying the full load of family life…I had to set up the practice, be manager, receptionist and cleaner and with an eight month old baby as well as minding the telephone every evening night and weekend — no freedom. That’s how my career changed from my radiography into general practice management.
During my time in practice management, what I struggled most with was how to manage people, I could deal with the finance and legislation. How to manage people’s behavior, staff’s behavior; how could I constantly look after patients in distress and complaints. That sort of thing was the biggest thing that challenged me and I knew I needed to take on different learning for that.
BRICK 5: TEACHING SKILLS
I desperately felt I needed something to validate the skills I learned as a practice manager… Historically, practice managers were people who had come up through as receptionists and were given responsibility for doing book work. I definitely wasn’t doing that. I was running a pharmacy, a dispensary, a business, etc.
Then the Scottish government instituted a new GP contract which included practice assessments — assessments to ensure practices were fulfilling the statute requirements and they also had a tick list to prove that they had certain procedures in place and how they worked, also carried out specific aspects of patient care. That new contract demanded a higher caliber of practice management, and at the same time the Scottish government started to fund a vocational training scheme (that later developed into a degree course) for practice managers so a call went out to practice managers who were interested in becoming trainers in practice management. I applied, and I became one of the first cohort of trainers with that new scheme, and I was with it as it developed.
It became quite academic and that’s when the training came in and I had to deliver workshops. I think because of my background, I was given a great input into the vocational scheme of making sure that we were keeping the standard of the academic side of it. I created and developed training sessions. I marked the papers as well as delivered the workshops of getting them to understand how theory applied to practice.
I apply that experience now to how I train people in kilt making. I ensure they understand the theory behind the tailoring and kilt making and patiently coach them so they succeed and understand what they’re doing with their hands and also the maths. There’s a lot of maths in kilt making too, the calculations.
BRICK 6: DIVORCE — ANOTHER DOOR CLOSES; ANOTHER DOOR OPENS
I felt that being the wife of my employer where I was wife at work and employee at home, was very hard and so very difficult to be respected in your role when you weren’t viewed as a professional equal, too.
When I became on my own, after my divorce, I had freedom of choice of what I could do in my life instead of following somebody else’s wishes, I heard about a kilt school further north and so I thought, “that’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to learn that.” I wasn’t needing to consider anybody else’s needs before myself and so I took time off work and attended two blocks of training sessions which sowed the seed for me to continue that learning further and get to a certain level of competence to actually deliver my own kilt training and commissions. I used lessons from my experience and also knowing how I felt it could be done better.
HAL: How old were you when you went to kilt school?
MARION: I was 52.
BRICK 7: BUILDING A NEW BUSINESS
KATHLEEN: What was the catalyst from going from a practice manager, dispenser and trainer to a kilt maker as a profession?
MARION: Suddenly I had practically no income coming in. But it was good to be…on my own. I didn’t have any buffer; it was just me, and if my kilt making didn’t work out, I didn’t have work…One day I just thought, have I got choices? Have I got choices? I thought, right, well, I’ve got my professional pension…I realized that if I cashed it in then at 55, I could pay my mortgage and my rates, I could keep the roof over my head. If business didn’t work out well, I wouldn’t lose my house. I’d probably not drink much wine and get my hair done, but at least I wasn’t carrying on, marking time ’til I was 65. I thought, I don’t want to wait ’til then to start following my creative side that I’ve wanted to do but haven’t had time to do because there’s always other priorities.
HAL: In terms of learning how to run a business, especially such a complex one as a GP practice, is there anything you can relate from the skills that you learned to running your current business?
MARION: With that, well, I think with running my current business, I knew how to set up and run a business. I knew my way around things that way. I didn’t fear about setting up my own business. When I built my kilt workshop, it didn’t phase me to be the contractor, to set that up… I’d done all that before and I wasn’t frightened about it. I wasn’t frightened about the finance either, I managed the finance behind it, I was able to negotiate, I was able to know what pitfalls there were.
I built my workshop with a good bit of wisdom behind me. Running the business, running the accounts, I had done it all. I’d just need to find the time to do it.
BRICK 8: TEACHING THE CRAFT
My training experience came from my journey from radiography through to my general practice in teaching management and leadership. Now, I use that training experience in delivering workshops and training in the craft of kilt making.
In pursuing and developing the craft, I’m actually writing down what I know because it’s not been written down before. A lot of the people who have made kilts…have come from more vocational and practical backgrounds, rather than an [instructional] one… They’ve not delved into that understanding… where my head’s trying to work all these things out as a student and then trainer.
When I was in practice management…there was a huge amount of talk about the need for trainers to have resilience. You need patience and resilience. I’ve carried that through with the kilt making. You need a lot of patience…focusing on detail…But if you relax into it, it’s jolly good for you. I say that it’s like defragmenting your brain…When you’re working with pattern matching and the maths of making it work out… your brain settles down and you get order out of chaos.
BRICK 9: BACK TO THE FUTURE AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF KILT MAKING
Today, I describe myself as a kilt maker, I’ve a business making kilts, commissions — it’s bespoke… it’s a craft and I bring the art into it. So, it’s a difference from manufacturing and just sewing.
HAL: In terms of making a kilt by hand, you’re one of the few people left that can do that. Can you talk about that?
MARION: The craft of the tailored kilt is dying out. There’s a difference in the construction with the popular High St. Kilt . The market is flooded by manufactured kilts and low quality kilts from Pakistan and China. They’re being sold very cheaply and they’re like kilted skirts. The cheaper kilts are flat garments compared to the kilt shaped by hand stitching and steam. The process has been reduced to decrease the amount of time in production and cloth. There is a big manufacturer… using glue. No future proofing.
I don’t know if you heard of Savile Row quality suits, but when somebody purchased a suit from there, they expected it to last them a lifetime. The quality of the construction and the fit just stays good for life, and that’s the difference here too with a kilt — how it’s constructed. It’ll last and keep its shape and look good.
HAL: What is a tartan and what is the significance of it from one family or clan to another?
MARION: Well, the significance is the association with the family, the clans….In the late 1700s, early 1800s… they started to record the clan tartans, which were associated with the names — the MacKenzies, the Campbells, all those. Nowadays, it’s not just clan tartans associated with the clans and the family name, there are area tartans. For example the Irish, they didn’t have clans. Their names are associated from the areas they came from. So the Irish have area tartans and we have too, in Scotland. … Nowadays, we have commercial tartans, for example, companies will design their own tartan. Families that want to have a personal tartan, that they will design. … And it’s not just relating to Scotland now; we’ve got loads of USA tartans — Carolina ones for example.
BRICK 10: MAKING A KILT FOR THE ROYAL FAMILY
HAL: So, tell us how you ended up making a kilt for a Prince of the United Kingdom.
MARION: After Prince William and Kate Middleton married, and they became the Earl and Countess of Strathearn, they came to visit the Strathearn area here. The Perth and Kinross Council phoned me and said … they wanted to bring together an exhibition of excellence and of local crafts. They asked if I would bring my kilts along to let them know about the work I do here and, oh by the way, would I make Prince George a kilt to present to Prince William and Kate on their visit?
MARION: So, I thought when she asked me that, I thought well, yeah, I could do that, yeah, okay, I’ll make Prince George a kilt. But it was funny, I came off the phone and suddenly I thought, I’ve just been asked to make Prince George a kilt. So, they told me because it’s a Royal visit, they have to keep it quiet for security.
That was the worst secret I ever kept. I told everyone I was making Prince George a wee kilt and they were visiting. Everyone knew anyway. It was a lovely occasion presenting to him.
HAL: What was the moment like when you actually got to present the kilt?
MARION: It was very lovely because they spent a lot of time with me. When they came over and I had the kilt they were asking lots of questions and looking at it. There was photographers ‘round about and there was all these photographs being taken of them looking at the kilt and taking pictures of the kilt. I was in Hello magazine (a weekly magazine specializing in celebrity news)… I was named a lot in the press that they got this kilt at Marion Foster Kilt Maker. It was wonderful; I never thought it’d ever make Hello magazine….When Hello magazine came over to me and asked what they had said to me, I told them that Kate said George will have to keep his sticky hands off it! So, it was a surreal moment; it was lovely and they were very gracious.
I got a letter from them thanking me, so that’s in a frame in my room there.
KATHLEEN: Anything else you want to share?
MARION: My father wrote his memoirs and titled them, “The Way the Ball Bounces”, relating to the rugby ball. When it lands you often don’t know which way it’s going to bounce, and it goes off bouncing in a completely different way that you just didn’t expect ’cause his life took turns. I think our lives do take turns like that. Okay, so I’ve got to let you go now, goodbye!
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Learn more about Marion Foster and kilt making on her website, https://askivalofstrathearn.co.uk/.
“10 Bricks” is a series of interviews with people who have had interesting careers and lives, bucking the conventional wisdom of following a single, linear career path.
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Design and illustration by Martine Lindstrøm.
