Edinburgh kilt maker recalls crafting Mel Gibson’s Braveheart premiere outfit
Edinburgh kilt maker Cathy Hope, 60, worked through a whole weekend to create a kilt worn by Mel Gibson at the Braveheart premiere in 1995, a job that remains her 'claim to fame'
An Edinburgh kilt maker has recounted her "claim to fame" crafting the garment Mel Gibson wore to the 1995 Braveheart premiere.
Cathy Hope, 60, from Gilmerton, gave up her weekend to rush-make the eight-yard Hunting Buchanan tartan kilt after being handed the last-minute request 31 years ago.
Working as a tailor at Geoffrey Tailor on the Royal Mile at the time, Cathy was handed the urgent request by Lorna Nicholsby, the wife of one of the company's owners, and initially believed the commission was a joke.
“[Lorna] said, ‘I need a kilt done over the weekend. I need it done quite rushed,’” Cathy recalled.
“She put it down in front of me and said: ‘It’s for Mel Gibson’. I was like: ‘It’s a wind-up.’”
Few movies released in 1995 were as hotly-anticipated as Braveheart. The historical epic directed by Mel Gibson, who also starred in the lead role as the legendary Scottish hero William Wallace, would go on to gross more than £155 million worldwide.
Cathy’s kilt would be worn by Gibson at the film's premiere at Stirling Castle in 1995. She took the eight-yard piece of Hunting Buchanan tartan home with her and spent the weekend working on it.
“Everybody that was coming into the house I was like ‘Do you know whose kilt that is? Do you know whose kilt that is?’” she recalled.
Despite its Hollywood connection, the kilt was made using the same traditional kilt making techniques Cathy used every day.
Every pleat was hand-sewn, with the waistband attached by machine before being turned and finished by hand.
However, Cathy revealed to the Evening News that she had added one tiny personal touch. She embroidered her initials on the right-hand side of the kilt, meaning that they would sit on Gibson’s right buttock when he wore it.
“So when he was wearing the kilt, I knew my initials were on his bum,” she laughed.
The actor's measurements had been sent from London, and Cathy stated that she actually never met Gibson. A few weeks later, however, a signed photograph arrived at the workshop with a message thanking her.
She later spotted photographs of Gibson circulating online arriving at the premiere wearing the kilt she had made him.
“It looked great on him,” she said. “We were lucky because when people send sizes, you're never quite sure if they're going to be the right length. It was perfect, it sat on him well.”
More than three decades on, the Mel Gibson commission remains Cathy’s “claim to fame” and is one she happily admits she has “dined out on” ever since.
Following a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis in 2008, Cathy underwent eight months of chemotherapy but continued making kilts during her treatment, securing one order from a fellow hospital patient.
Now in remission, she works alongside her son Jack at his Edinburgh-based business, Braw Kilts.
Her international commissions include a kilt made for US rapper Snoop Dogg, worn during his appearance at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Munich in 2007, which she completed while working for the Edinburgh-based firm Eight Yards.
But it is still the kilt she made for Mel Gibson that remains to be her favourite piece of work to date.
She added: “I was just lucky enough to be at work that day and happened to get Mel Gibson’s kilt.”