Reviled, Reshaped, Reexamined: A History of Scottish Tartan

By Zachary Vincent

Any time spent in Scotland will result in familiarity with tartan. Whether it be in the windows of a tourist shop, on chair cushion covers, or gracing the pleats of a kilt, the plaid designs of tartan are everywhere. Many people with Scottish heritage are interested in tartan for specific purposes, namely figuring out which tartan design belongs to which clan. Perhaps no other Scottish art is tied as closely with individual identity in the popular imagination as tartan, but the history of the woven fabric is often different from what many expect. 

The general reputation of tartan is that it is, firstly, very ancient and, secondly, inseparable in its development from the Scottish clan system. It is certainly true that tartan is old; there is evidence to point to tartan weaving in Scotland at least 600 years ago. The widespread belief that tartan has always been tied to the clan system is far less accurate. Study of the plaid designs of tartan weaving, defined in part by the horizontal ‘weave’ and vertical ‘weft’ patterns, has shown that the colorful and unique designs of tartan were not tied to any particular clan identity for most of its history. Region, rather than clan, seems to be the trait most tied to tartan pattern, surely a saddening discovery for any “Outlander” fans fawning of the Fraser tartan and its romantic familial conjurations. The question which might present itself to the modern viewer of tartan, then, is why tartan has come to be associated so closely with the clan system if that was not how it began? 

The answer to this question points to one of art history’s most staggering resurrections, driven by shrewd marketing, royal infatuation, and secretly kept textile production secrets. This revival of tartan accompanied the resurgence of many other elements of Scottish culture seen today as crucially representational of the country (bagpipes, Gaelic, etc.) This ‘resurgence’ came after a decade low point in the history of Scottish culture when, between 1746 and 1756, the wearing of tartan, playing of bagpipes, and speaking of Gaelic was banned in Scotland. Cultural repression ensued following the failed Jacobite uprising of 1745-6 and was meant as a means for subduing the more ‘problematic’ elements of Scottish culture which had, in the eyes of the Hanoverian British monarchs, helped push many Scots towards treason and rebellion against the crown. Though only officially banned for a decade, it took more than half a century for traditional highland Scottish culture to be truly revived.  

Figure 1. Sir David Wilkie, George IV, 1829, oil on canvas, 274.4 by 179.1 cm, Holyrood Palace, Courtesy of the Royal Collection Trust 

The necessary efforts to accomplish such a feat eventually came from the popular novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), who attempted, through his dramatic and popular literature, to romanticize Scottish history by regaling readers with tales of dashing heroes of the past. An important part of this cultural revival for Scott was tartan, something beautiful and symbolic of Scottish tradition. And yet, tartan design based on regional patterns did not seem nearly romantic enough for the author and his contemporaries. Rebranding tartan as something associated with the adventurous and wild clan system became a way of renewing public interest in the textile and marketing it for a larger audience than ever. Key to this rebranding and spreading of interest in Scotland’s visual history was the visit of the British monarch King Georg IV in 1822, who was so taken with Scottish culture that he fell in love with Scotland for the rest of his life, often seen wearing his own full set of tartan highland wear (Figure 1). 

And so, the story of tartan, while not actually the history of clans and romanticized ancientness it has often been made out to be, is still a vital component of Scottish art history. It is the story of beautiful wool weaving and generational tradition, of war and subjugation, and of a cultural revival and popularity which continues to the present day. 

Bibliography 

Cheape, Hugh. Tartan: The Highland Habit. Edinburgh: National Museums of Scotland, 1995. 

Tuckett, Sally, “Reassessing the Romance: Tartan as a Popular Commodity, c. 1770-1830”, in The Scottish Historical Review, Volume 95, No. 2 (October 2016), pp. 182-190.