Essential Information - What’s Your Tartan?
Let me ask you a question; How many Scotish Tartans do you think there are? You are either going to say ‘well theres a red one and a green one and probably a yellow one’ or maybe that there is an almost infinite number what with the potential variations of thread colours and patterns. Actually the Scottish Tartans Authority (the body who keep a public record of all known tartans) keep around 5,500 designs on their database, each one registered with a unique name, thread count and in many cases a woven sample. From this massive list around 600-700 are ‘commercially woven’ in other words Scottish weavers produce cloth in these tartans. Still thats a pretty long list, no wonder anyone gets confused when they are trying to decide what tartan to wear.
First of all tartans can be divided into different types: There are the ‘Clan and Family’ tartans which make up the majority of registered designs, next come the ‘District’ Tartans, then Universal, Regimental & Corporate Tartans and finally some odd categories such as ‘Royal, Clan Chief’s and Mourning’ Tartans. This at least begins to make things a little more manageable.
Most people when they are selecting a tartan to wear will begin with the Clan and Family Tartans.
Clan & Family Tartans:
A Clan Tartan is one that is directly associated with a specific Scottish Clan such as Clan MacGregor or Clan Campbell - Family tartans are ones associated to large Scottish Family names such as Galbraith or Watson. Since both Clan and Family tartans have the same purpose (to identify by surname) its easier to class these together. If you have a fairly common Scottish Surname then you are pretty much home and dry - there will almost certainly be a tartan for you. Tartans have been directly associated with Scottish surnames since the early 19th century and new ones appear all the time. If your surname is not Scottish that’s still ok - just check along the line of decent on your Mothers side, if you can trace a Scottish name along that line then that will be ok too. (can we dispel a myth at this point; it is not ‘illegal’ to wear a tartan of another clan or family. My mother has always worn Lindsay tartan despite being a Robertson by birth - she wears it because she likes the colour so please don’t get to hung up on the legality)
If your ancestral search does not uncover any tartans then there are other routes you can take - Your next line of enquiry may be the ‘District’ tartans
District Tartans:
A district tartan as the name suggests is a tartan that represents a geographical region. This can be a town, county, state or even a country as they are not restricted to Scotland. As well as Scottish counties there are tartans from other parts of the UK such as Cornwall, Irish Counties and overseas districts in Canada and many US States - the choice here is huge. One of the most popular district tartans is the New York City tartan for example. Armed with this information if the area you live in or where your family came from has district tartan that could be your choice. As many district tartans are recent designs there are some lovely patterns out there.
Regimental Tartans
Most Scottish Regiments adopted one or more clan tartans - if you have a connection with a Scottish Regiment (or just want to show your support for one) then you could wear one of the many Regimantal Tartans - there are also specific Regimental tartans such as ‘Black Watch’ This is also what is known as a Universal Tartan and we can cover these next. There are also tartans relating to other regiments and armed forces such as the US Marines or US Navy.
Universal Tartans
A Universal Tartan is one that anyone can wear. The demand for tartan that can be worn by anyone has grown over the last few decades, The popularity of Scottish culture has fuelled this greatly and many new universal tartans are targetted towards the wedding market. Examples of Universal tartans are: Hunting Stewart, Black Watch, Caledonian, and Jacobite and more recent ones such Scottish National, Brave Heart Warrior, Flower of Scotland and Pride of Scotland.
Having finally chosen a tartan you can now look at the various options. In some cases there are a number of variants, for example ‘Hunting’ which are earthy colours or ‘Dress’ which normally have a White background. You will also see the phrases ‘Ancient (anc), Modern (mod) ‘Weathered’ etc. This refers to the colour reproduction. Synthetic dyes were introduced to weaving in the 19th Century, these colours were stronger and darker that the older vegetable dyes used by weavers, hence Modern is normally a stronger variant and Ancient colours are reproductions of the vegetable dye colours so are normally lighter and less saturated. Other variants such as ‘Weathered’ reproduce the effects of sun bleaching on cloth - weathered tartans have a wonderful organic feel to them, they are also attractive as they do look remarkably like some very old tartan fabric samples that have been discovered going back to the 1700s.
With luck you have now managed to narrow down your choice to a few tartans - the next step, order some swatches and you are well on the way to being properly kilted!
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