FreeKilt is a photo contest funded and fulfilled by Scottish Kilt Shop. There’s no catch, but there is a reason — and you should know what it is before you send us a photo.
Scottish Kilt has sold tartan since 2012 — kilts, jackets, skirts, and more, cut and pleated to your own measurements in workshops it owns and runs itself. We wanted photographs of real people living in their tartan, not studio shots on a white background — and we wanted to meet the people who care about their clan sett, instead of just advertising at them.
So we give away $500 of the range every fortnight, in exchange for a photograph and permission to show it.
That’s the whole model. You get a free entry and a real shot at a piece you choose. We get a gallery of actual people wearing actual tartan, and a reason for people to come back. Nobody’s pretending this is a charity — but nobody’s being tricked either.
What we won’t do is dress it up. No invented entry counts, no fabricated testimonials, no stock photography passed off as community submissions. If a number appears on FreeKilt, it came from the database. If it’s zero, it says zero.
Scottish Kilt is a specialist tartan retailer that’s outfitted the Scottish-American diaspora since 2012. The idea was simple: millions of Americans carry Scottish ancestry — a surname, a clan history, a tartan that belongs to their family — but traditional kiltmaking prices most of them out. A single formal kilt can cost more than a month’s rent, and “your” tartan is often only available if a mill decides to weave it. Scottish Kilt closed that gap by cutting out everyone standing between the person who wants a kilt and the people who make it.
What that looks like in practice
Woven to order across Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and diaspora heritage.
Nothing outsourced. Cut and pleated by a team that’s largely stayed since day one — 98% of makers have been with the company since founding.
Not a size chart. Most pieces take three to four weeks plus shipping; stock items ship within five working days.
Tartan cloth is woven acrylic yarn — never printed, never called wool. Utility kilts are 100% cotton. Leather goods are genuine leather.
One photo with tartan clearly visible in it. If you’re wearing the tartan, you need to be in the photo.
We don’t care what the tartan is on. A contest that only accepts kilts speaks to people who already own one — a fraction of everyone who owns tartan. So we stopped drawing lines and kept one rule.
Questions about an entry, a prize, your data, or an event you want listed — one address, answered by someone who can actually act on it.
4128 Dale Blvd
Woodbridge, VA 22193
support@scottishkiltshop.com
+1 (800) 999 0100
Monday to Saturday, 8 AM – 8 PM ET
Free, no purchase necessary, open worldwide to anyone 18 or over.
Submit an entry →