Tartan

[57] An old-time practice, to the 18th century, was to add an accent on plaids or sometimes kilts in the form of a selvedge in herringbone weave at the edge, 1–3 inches (2.5–7.6 cm) wide, but still fitting into the colour pattern of the sett;[57][58] a few modern weavers will still produce some tartan in this style.

The tartan fabric (along with other types of simple and patterned cloth) was recovered, in excavations beginning in 1978, with other grave goods of the Tarim or Ürümqi mummies[134] – a group of often Caucasoid (light-haired, round-eyed)[135][136] bodies naturally preserved by the arid desert rather than intentionally mummified.

There are several other continental European paintings of tartan-like garments from around this era (even back to the 13th century), but most of them show very simple two-colour basic check patterns, or (like the Martini and Memmi Annunciation example) broad squares made by thin lines of one colour on a background of another.

[171] The earliest surviving image of a Highlander in what was probably meant to represent tartan is a 1567–80 watercolour by Lucas de Heere, showing a man in a belted, pleated yellow tunic with a thin-lined checked pattern, a light-red cloak, and tight blue shorts (of a type also seen in period Irish art), with claymore and dirk.

[193] Its dense weave requiring specialised skills and equipment, tartan was not generally one individual's work but something of an early cottage industry in the Highlands – an often communal activity called calanas, including some associated folk singing traditions – with several related occupational specialties (wool comber, dyer, waulker, warp-winder, weaver) among people in a village, part-time or full-time,[195] especially women.

[235] A 1653 map, Scotia Antiqua by Joan Blaeu, features a cartouche that depicts men in trews and belted plaid; the tartan is crudely represented as just thin lines on a plain background,[236] and various existing copies are hand-coloured differently.

Daniel Defoe, in Memoirs of a Cavalier (c. 1720) wrote, using materials that probably dated to the English Civil War, of Highlanders invading Northern England back in 1639 that they had worn "doublet, breeches and stockings, of a stuff they called plaid, striped across red and yellow, with short cloaks of the same".

[263][ak] M. Martin (1703) wrote that the "vulgar" Hebridean women still wore the arisaid wrap/dress,[264] describing it as "a white Plad, having a few small Stripes of black, blue, and red; it reach'd from the Neck to the Heels, and was tied before on the Breast with a Buckle of Silver, or Brass", some very ornate.

[246] Edmund Burt, an Englishman who spent years in and around Inverness, wrote in 1727–1737 (published 1754) that the women there also wore such plaids, made of fine worsted wool or even of silk, that they were sometimes used to cover the head, and that they were worn long, to the ankle, on one side.

[295][296] Another surviving Culloden sample, predominantly red with broad bands of blue, green, and black, and some thin over-check lines, consists of a largely intact entire plaid that belonged on one John Moir; it was donated to the National Museum of Scotland in 2019.

[370] After the Jacobite uprisings, raising a regiment in service to the king was, for many Scottish lairds, a way of rehabilitating the family name, assuring new-found loyalty to the Hanoverian crown, and currying royal favour (even regaining forfeited estates).

[358] After the Highland regiments proved themselves fearless and effective in various military campaigns, the glory associated with them did much to keep alive, initially among the gentry and later the general public, an interest in tartan and kilts, which might have otherwise slipped into obscurity due to the Dress Act's prohibition.

[412] According to National Galleries of Scotland curator A. E. Haswell Miller (1956):[408] To sum up, the presumed heraldic or "family badge" significance of the tartan has no documentary support, and the establishment of the myth can be accounted for by a happy coincidence of the desire of the potential customers, the manufacturer and the salesman.

Aside from the outright forgery of the "Sobieski Stuarts" (see § 19th century broad adoption, below), another extreme case is Charles Rogers, who in his Social Life in Scotland (1884–86) fantastically claimed that the ancient Picts' figural designs – which were painted or tattooed on their bodies, and they went into battle nude [423]– must have been "denoting the families or septs to which they belonged" and thus "This practice originated the tartan of Celtic clans.

[358] In 1829, responding negatively to the idea of Lowland and Borders "clans" wearing their own tartans, Sir Walter Scott – who was instrumental in helping start the clan-tartans fervour in the first place – wrote "where had slept this universal custom that nowhere, unless in this MS. [the draft Vestiarium Scoticum, published ultimately in 1842] is it even heard of? ...

[560] Scott himself was backpedalling away from what he had helped create, and was suspicious of the recent claims about "ancient" clan tartans: "it has been the bane of Scottish literature and disgrace of her antiquities, that we have manifested an eager propensity to believe without inquiry and propagate the errors which we adopt too hastily ourselves.

[584] By 1849, John Sobieski Stuart was in discussion with a publisher to produce a new, cheaper edition of Vestiarium, in a series of small volumes "so that it might be rendered as available as possible to manufacturers and the trades in general concerned in Tartan ... and it was for the[ir] advantage and use ... that I consented to the publication."

[587] In the same year, Authenticated Tartans of the Clans and Families of Scotland by William & Andrew Smith was based on trade sources such as Wilsons, competing mill Romanes & Paterson of Edinburgh, and army clothier George Hunter's pre-1822 collection of setts (and some consultation with historian W. F.

[659] Because Scott had become "the acknowledged preserver of Scotland's past" through his historical novels, the legend he helped create of tartan and Highland dress as a Scotland-wide tradition rooted in antiquity was widely and quickly accepted, despite its ignoring and erasing of cultural diversity within the country[652] (of Gaels, Norse–Gaels, Scoto-Normans, and Lowlanders of largely Anglo-Saxon extraction).

[697] The visit involved her large royal party being met with several theatrical tartan-kilted welcomes by Highland nobility and their retinues, with much sycophantic newspaper fanfare (while the common people were experiencing considerable misery); the Queen wrote: "It seemed as if a great chieftain in olden feudal times was receiving his sovereign".

[720] Despite their considerable devotion to charity (up to 20% of their Privy Purse income),[721] Victoria and Albert, along with their friends in the northern gentry, have been accused of using their "Balmorality" – a term coined by George Scott-Moncrieff (1932) to refer to upper-class appropriation of Highland cultural trappings, marked by "hypocrisy" and "false sentiment" – to trivialise and even fictionalise history.

"[746] Even the 1822 "King's Jaunt" had been stage-managed by two Scots with a keen interest in romanticising and promoting Gaelic and broader Scottish culture (historico-traditional accuracy notwithstanding),[652] and the Atholls' deep and tartan-arrayed involvement in Victoria's activities in the north can be viewed in the same light.

A tartanistical fantasy, as well as another exercise in "Highlander as noble savage", the art book necessitated canvassing Scottish aristocrats for outfits and suitable models ("specimens"), as the everyday people did not look the hyper-masculine part, were not able to afford such Highland-dress extravagances as were to be illustrated, and were more likely to be wearing trousers than kilts.

Harry Lauder (properly Sir Henry – he was knighted for his war-effort fundraising during World War I) became world-famous in the 1910s and 1920s, on a dance hall and vaudeville entertainment platform of tartan Highland dress, a thick Scots accent, and folksy songs about an idealised, rural Scotland, like his hit "Roamin' in the Gloamin'".

"[793] In 2006, the British Ministry of Defence sparked controversy when it allowed foreign woollen mills to bid for the government contracts to provide the tartans used by the Scottish troops (newly amalgamated as battalions into the Royal Regiment of Scotland), and lowered the formerly very high standards for the cloth.

[822][823] Large-scale global manufacturers of tartan-patterned cloth in a variety of cotton, polyester, viscose, nylon, etc., materials and blends include Başkan Tekstil in Istanbul and Bursa, Turkey; and Jeen Wei Enterprises in Taichung, Taiwan; while a leading maker of tartan ribbon is Satab in Saint-Just-Malmont, France.

A British court on 2 July 2008 issued an interim interdict (preliminary injunction) against Gold Brothers' sale of Isle of Skye goods, after a police search found hundreds of metres of the pattern in Chinese-made cloth in the company's warehouse.

In Japan, tartan patterns called kōshi 格子 (also koushi or goushi, literally 'lattice') or kōshijima 格子縞 date back to at least the 18th century,[408] possibly the 17th[1018] in the Edo period (1603–1867), and were popular for kabuki theatrical costuming, which inspired general public use by both sexes, for the kosode (precursor of the kimono), the obi, and other garments.

Robert Jamieson, writing in 1818 as editor of Edmund Burt's 1727–37 Letters of a Gentleman in the North of Scotland, said that in his era, married women of the north-western provinces of Russia wore tartan plaids "of massy silk, richly varied, with broad cross-bars of gold and silver tissue".

[1027][1028] Around the end of the 19th century, the Russian equivalent of Regency and Victorian British tartanware objects, such as decorative Fedoskino boxes with tartan accents in a style called Shotlandka Шотландка (literally 'Scotlandish'), were produced by companies like the Lukutin Manufactory on the outskirts of Moscow.

Photo of three samples of tartan cloth, blue, grey, and red, the grey in a subtle palette, the others bright
Three tartans; the left and right are made with the "modern" dye palette; the middle is made with "muted" colours.
Montage of 9 tartan designs, from simple to complex, and in a wide range of colours
Tartans come in a wide variety of colours and patterns.
A purple-red-and-green tartan skirt and jumper (sweater) on a mannequin
1970s Missoni tartan knit jumper (sweater) and skirt set
Simple diagram of black weft threads being woven under two orange warp threads then over two of the warp threads
Visualisation of 2/2 twill weave: the black weft threads go two over then two under the orange warp threads, staggered by one thread each pass (resulting in a diagonal pattern). In the actual cloth, the white gaps would be closed.
Close-up view of scarlet red, black, yellow, azure bleu, and crimson red tartan cloth
Close-up view of traditional tartan cloth, showing pattern of diagonal "ribs" of colour; this is a five-colour tartan, in scarlet red, black, yellow, azure blue, and crimson red.
Tartan weaving in Lochcarron , Scottish Highlands
Zoom-in on a predominantly red tartan plaid, showing its bottom edge with a purled fringe
Zoom-in on a bagpiper's full plaid ( royal Stuart tartan ), showing the purled fringe style typical for such garments
The brighter of the MacLeod tartans, known affectionately as the "loud MacLeod", in the saturated modern palette.
Fairly crude painting (detail) of a man using some kind of tool, wearing a cotehardie (tunic) of half red cloth and half complex tartan
Detail of Spanish altarpiece by the "Master of Estamariu ", late 14th century, showing a particoloured cotehardie with a three-colour, complex tartan
A faded and somewhat tattered span of tartan cloth, presently looking tan with various dark lines across it
The Glen Affric tartan (c. 1500–1600 AD), discovered in a peat bog in the 1980s
Man in belted yellow checkered tunic, black shoes, blue shorts, and light-red cloak, with sword and dirk.
Éscossois sauvage ('Savage Scotsman') by Lucas de Heere , c. 1567–80
A man in belted plaid, blue bonnet, and diced hose, with longbow and sword; woman in plaid as a cloak, over a reddish-orange dress, with a lace collar and lace head covering.
Highland man and woman in tartan, c. 1603–1616, by Hieronymus Tielsch . The crude attempt to represent tartan shows a blue and green pattern with red over-check, but did not blend the colours. [ ab ]
The earliest image of Scottish soldiers wearing tartan belted plaids and trews; 1631 German engraving by Georg Köler .
Oil portrait of a young man in red, tan, and black tartan belted plaid, white shirt, split jerkin of gold embroidery, red diced short hose, and broad flat cap, with musket
Mungo Murray, c. 1683, by John Michael Wright ( Scottish National Portrait Gallery version), featuring a very complex tartan
Oil painting of a middle-aged woman in a blue white dress with brown leather belt, with a plaid around her shoulders of a red-and-blue tartan with thin white over-checks
Rachel Gordon of Abergeldie, c. 1700 – the earliest known formal portrait of a woman in tartan
Woman with baby, in tartan dress, man in tartan kilt and red coat, blue bonnet
Highland soldier and family, the woman in an arisaid ; by Martin Engelbrecht c. 1717–1754 [ al ]
Painting of the prince in a red-and-black tartan coat with crossed bandoliers, and an elaborate blue bonnet with white cockade
Charles Edward Stuart , "Bonnie Prince Charlie", in tartan and blue bonnet with Jacobite white cockade; portrait by William Mosman c. 1750
An olive-dominated tartan with a fair amount of navy blue and black, and over-checks of red (with sky-blue guard lines), yellow (guarded by black), and white
A pattern from a coat (probably Jacobite) known to date to the period of the 1745 uprising
Portrait of young woman in a blue and white dress with predominantly red tartan plaid around her shoulders, and several white roses, a Jacobite symbol.
Jacobite women continued wearing tartan during the proscription (1749 portrait of Flora MacDonald by Allan Ramsay and Joseph van Aken ; the tartan is a Tullibardine area pattern, later the Murray of Tullibardine clan tartan). [ 326 ]
Girl around age 8, in red-and-black tartan bodice and skirt, with basket and white rose
Helen Murray of Ochtertyre, daughter and eldest child of Sir Patrick Murray of Ochtertyre, 4th Bt; c. 1750, artist uncertain. The tartans of the bodice and skirt do not match exactly, and are not surviving patterns. [ 331 ]
Coloured line-drawing of two early Highland regiment soldiers in green tartan great kilts, red-and-white diced hose, and blue bonnets, one with a musket
Soldiers from a Highland regiment c. 1744 wearing tartan belted plaids (great kilts).
Busy scene of 8 men in various forms of Highland regimental uniform, with 3 children and dog also in-scene. The central figure is doing a Highland sword dance, near a bagpiper, while the other figures look on.
The Sword Dance by David Cunliffe, 1853, depicting men of the 42nd and 93rd. The dancer in the centre wears the 42nd's red band tartan.
Seven soldiers in action, in red tartan trews, with red coats and black feather bonnets, and one with a tartan shoulder plaid; most have rifles
72nd Duke of Albany's Own Highlanders during a trews-wearing period, c. 1844, in the tartan named for Prince Charles Edward Stuart
Two Highland-regiment pipe majors in kilts, Glengarry bonnets, and undress army blouses with insignia, as well as leather shoes and hose with flashes; a woman in a white skirt is examining the pleats of one of the kilts.
An Italian woman inspects the kilts of two pipe majors in Rome, 1944, toward the end of kilts as undress uniform in Highland regiments
Painting of a curly-haired, portly, middle-aged man in a red-and-black tartan outfit, with sword belt over his shoulder
John Campbell of the Bank, 1749, by William Mosman . The present official Clan Campbell tartans are predominantly blue, green and black. [ 416 ]
Stylized bagpiper in green-and-red tartan kilt, red-and-white tartan hose, red embroidered coat, dark bonnet with red cockade, and an armorial banner blowing behind him
This 1714 portrait, by Richard Waitt , of the piper to the chief of Clan Grant does show a broad green-ish and red tartan, but it does not match any modern Grant pattern. [ 438 ] [ bg ]
David Morier 's An Incident in the Rebellion of 1745 . The tartans shown generally do not resemble modern ones.
A young woman in a coat of predominantly-red tartan and white satin with gold braid, and a white headdress, with a white rose and what is probably a riding crop
Unknown Jacobite lady in Tullabardine tartan, c. 1740–1750, attributed to Cosmo Alexander
Elderly man in Highland dress with a green coat and various medals, wearing spectacles (eyeglasses) and leaning on a basket-hilted sword
Maj.-Gen. David Stewart of Garth , c. 1820, in royal Stewart tartan
Full length portrait of young woman wearing a white empire-waist dress with a plaid of tartan loosely draped over her head and left shoulder, seated in a park
Elizabeth Gordon ( née Brodie), Duchess of Gordon , c. 1813–1814 by Alfred Edward Chalon ; she appears to be wearing Black Watch (42nd regiment) tartan, as it lacks the yellow over-check of 92nd Regiment, which became the Gordon clan tartan. This was only about a year before the Highland Society solicited clan patterns.
A "busy" tartan of broad red bands, medium green ones, and thin white ones
The Scott tartan invented by the "Sobieski Stuarts" around 1829, eventually published in the 1842 Vestiarium . Based on the c. 1819 MacGregor , the tartan was rejected (along with other Lowland family tartans) by Walter Scott , but remains the most popular Scott tartan. [ 562 ]
Romanticised Highland warrior with red-and-blue tartan small kilt, a targe, a basket-hilt broadsword, a fur vest, and a blue bonnet
" Maclachlan ", a romanticised Highland warrior image from Logan and McIan's The Clans of the Scottish Highlands , 1843
Charles E. N. Leith Hay, 1905 portrait by John Ernest Breun , in Edwardian daywear Highland dress, kilt in a dark rendition of the Hay and Leith tartan. Most clan tartans were settled by the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
A wall covered with a bewildering array of different samples of tartan cloth
400 clan and district tartan samples at the headquarters of the weaver Lochcarron of Scotland
Illustration of Scottish regimental soldier in green tartan kilt, red coat, and feather bonnet, with a lady in a blue tartan dress over a white slip
"The New Fashion, or The Scotsman in Paris", from a series of Parisian fashion prints, 1815
David Wilkie 's idealised depiction of George IV , in full Highland dress , during the visit to Scotland in 1822 [ cm ]
Young man in a black coat, trousers, and boots, a white cravat, and a voluminous tartan cloak with a red lining, holding a gentleman's cane
Portrait of John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute , by Henry Raeburn , c. 1829, showing adaptation of tartan to Regency-era clothing styles, like this red-lined cloak
Illustration of tartan dresses in French style of the era, frilly and with no relation to Scottish garb
French tartan fashions from Costumes Parisiens , 1826
Colour illustration of women in Victorian dresses working power looms in a large textile factory
Illustration of Victorian women weaving at power looms in a textile factory (this one in Denmark, but the scene in Wilsons of Bannockburn at its peak would have been very similar).
A Scottish Highlands hunting scene with a lord, a lady, a child, a gillie (all in tartan), two dogs, a horse, and two slain deer
Scene in the Highlands with Portraits of the Duchess of Bedford and Duke of Gordon (in various tartans), by Edwin Landseer , 1825. The Highlands were being cleared of native people, for deer hunting preserves and sheep pastures
Blue and yellow tartan dress with a trailing bustle, high collar, and a long series of buttons down the entire front
A silk and velvet late-Victorian young woman's tartan dress, 1878, probably made in England
Mannequin modelling a green and blue tartan suit, with a bowler derby hat and black shoes
A late Victorian style, this two-piece tartan suit dates to about 1875–1880
Four men in kilts with widely divergent tartans, sporting a variety of headgear, jackets, plaids, sporrans, and other accessories
Kenneth MacLeay 's 1866 portrait of a MacLachlan , a Graham , a MacFarlane , and a Colquhoun , for Victoria's Highlanders of Scotland book project.
The first permanent colour photograph, by Thomas Sutton in 1861, was of a tartan ribbon.
Prince Arthur with his hand on a chair, and dressed in an elaborate tartan costume
Prince Arthur dressed up as Bonnie Prince Charlie for the 1871 Waverley Ball
Head and shoulders view, in black and white, of Edward in a grey suit, white shirt, and starkly tartaned tie
Edward, Duke of Windsor , in a tartan necktie, 1945
Close up of five skirts in a wide variety of tartans
Catholic school uniform skirts, using a wide variety of tartans
Black and white image of Harry Lauder in a kilt, tartan hose and tie, tweed jacket, and a Balmoral bonnet
Harry Lauder in one of his Highland outfits, 1922
A hundred or more pipers and drummers in an array of kilts at a Scottish games event
Massed bands at the Glengarry Highland Games , Maxville, Ontario, Canada, 2006
Red-kilted bagpipers in feather bonnets on an urban city street
Mystic Highland Pipe Band at Tartan Day parade, New York City, 2002
Clothing rack with very wide array of tartan flannel shirts
General tartan-pattern clothing shot up in popularity again starting around 2010
A cast of dozens singing and dancing in kilts, tartan trews, and other outfits
Scene from 1954 Brigadoon film, with kilts and tartan trews
Football fans in kilts and other tartan garb, mixed with informal everyday clothing, on steps outside an arena
" Tartan Army " Scottish football fans at a match in Milan, Italy, in 2005
Five young men, two in tartan shirts, all wearing Dutch clogs
The Bay City Rollers in the Netherlands in 1976, sporting some tartan shirts and a tartan-trimmed jacket
A German punk wearing a piece of the royal Stewart tartan , 1984
A fairly traditional tartan pattern, but rendered in a rainbow selection of blue, purple, red, orange, yellow, and green.
"Tartan of Pride", designed in 2008; [ 868 ] one of over a dozen LGBT -themed modern "fashion" tartans
A tartan with wide bands of green and red, and narrower bands of grey and yellow
The Maple Leaf tartan, designed in 1964, [ 878 ] has been an official symbol of Canada since 2011. [ 879 ]
Highland dancing , at a 2008 Highland games event, in Aboyne dresses with dance tartans that feature a lot of white
A tartan that is predominantly two-tone grey with thin black and red stripes
The British royal family 's own Balmoral tartan (designed c. 1852). It is incidentally one of the few long-established tartans with multiple hues of the same colour (two greys, in this case).
Scottish airline Loganair in its tartan livery
A fairly complex divided-check tartan primarily of azure, maroon, and green with white and black over-checks
"DunBroch", a tartan devised by Disney/Pixar for fictional characters in the animated film Brave
A purse in the tan, black, and white Burberry check pattern, with rearing-horseman logos superimposed
Handbag in Burberry check
A heraldict design featuring book above a curve-horned ram holding a weaving shuttle in its mouth.
Coat of arms of the Scottish Register of Tartans
Scottish actor Sean Connery at a Tartan Day celebration in Washington DC. When knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000, he wore this green-and-black hunting-tartan kilt of his mother's Clan Maclean .
Black-and-white photo of three Maasai men in shúkà, two plain and probably red, one tartan.
Maasai men c. 1906–1918, one wearing a tartan shúkà ; photo by Walther Dobbertin
12 Maasai men in shúkà, mostly red, and mostly tartan
Maasai men in shúkà ; Narok County , Kenya, 2018
Four men outdoors in ruddy tartan gho robes, featuring four different patterns from very narrow to quite broad
Four Bhutanese men, 2012, in gho robes, with four different mathra patterns, from vary narrow to quite broad
Lap of woman in red and white kira dress with a pattern that features X-shaped details where the white stripes meet; prayer beads are also featured in the photo
Gira dress featuring "X" patterns where the white stripes meet, produced by supplementary weaving
A rough-stitched patchwork of tartan madras samples in a variety of faded colours
Samples of tartan madras cloth, showing its muted look
Japanese figure in a brown and yellow tartan-pattern kosode (early kimono)
Woodcut image of Japanese kabuki actor Iwai Hanshiro IV dressed in kōshi , 1780s
Pushkin at age 28 with mutton-chop beard, a high-necked coat, and a red and green tartan shoulder plaid
Alexander Pushkin wearing a tartan cape; by Orest Kiprensky , 1827