This year is Scotland’s Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology, celebrating the richness of Scottish culture and its fascinating past. Here we investigate the evolution of Scotland’s distinctive plaids, kilts and tartans – a unique national dress recognised throughout the world.

Back to basics
The story of Highland dress and the emergence of a Scottish national costume is complex, shrouded in myth and uncertainty, and scholars continually revisit the sources, attempting to sequence key developments and interpret their meaning.

Unusually for dress history narratives, this is mainly an account of men’s wear.

Early writings and artworks suggest that Scotsmen wore shirt-like garments in the Middle Ages – a basic body covering from neck to legs, like male attire elsewhere. By the 1500s a special saffron-dyed yellow linen shirt emulating the famed Irish war shirt had become a symbol of rank among Scottish noblemen, although this elite garment subsequently disappeared, perhaps through shortages of dyestuffs and fine Irish linen following Elizabethan domination of Ireland. Commonplace shirts of woollen cloth continued to be worn and archaeological evidence demonstrates that these were sometimes layered, for extra warmth. The preserved clothing of two peat bog bodies discovered at Quintfall Hill, Caithness, dating from the 1690s, and Arnish Moor, Isle of Lewis (early 1700s) also include woollen hip-length coats or jackets worn over the shirts – again comparable to everyday garments in other areas of Europe. The Caithness figure also wore regular breeches and stockings; the other knee-length stockings with his long shirt and jacket, but without breeches – a combination also depicted in contemporary 18th century sketches.

The traditional plaid
Most literary accounts mentioning dress date from the 16th century onwards, the Scottish Bishop John Leslie writing in The History of Scotland (1578) how: “All, both nobles and common people wore mantles of one sort (except that the nobles preferred those of several colours). These were worn long and flowing, but capable of being neatly gathered up at pleasure into folds.” Before the advent of tailored overcoats, voluminous mantles or cloaks were universally worn as warm, protective outer wraps that also served as blankets and by the early-1500s the Gaelic word ‘plaide’ was in use for the Scottish blanket or mantle. Typically the plaid was woven from thick woollen cloth and could measure up to 60 inches wide and four to seven yards long, the material often drawn up using a belt. The plaids of humble folk probably reflected the natural colours of the fleeces from which they were woven, or were simply dyed using locally-sourced vegetable substances, whereas richly-coloured plaids woven in complex patterns were a powerful expression of wealth and social status. Indeed, by the 17th century, paintings portray Highland chieftains posing in handsome tartan plaids arranged in majestic folds like the Roman toga – stately drapery no less impressive than the scarlet ermine-trimmed robes of peers of the realm.

Whether an article of luxury and beauty or a workaday version worn for warmth and comfort, the plaid was easily removed at home or discarded in warm weather, when a long shirt, jacket and stockings sufficed. Reportedly, when a Highlander donned his plaid, he laid it flat on the ground, passing a belt underneath at waist level, then gathered the material into vertical folds or pleats; he then lay down on the arranged cloth, crossing and fastening the belt and fabric over the front, before rising and flinging the surplus cloth over his shoulder or securing it at the neck. Allegedly with practice this process was simple, although an easier method may have been to stand and toss the bulk of the material over the shoulders, then to gather it in around the waist in one of various ways. With the length worn to the knee, ideally the fabric overlapped at the front of the legs but the edges tended to part during movement, inspiring the adoption of the sporran, as a way of preserving modesty.

Emergence of the kilt
The plaid – often referred to as the great plaid or feileadh mòr – was widely worn throughout Scotland when the political situation was transformed in 1707 by the Act of Union that unified England and Scotland under one parliament. Scotland was now proclaimed to be ‘North Britain’ and in defiance the populace ostentatiously paraded tartan garments to demonstrate their Scottish identity. However the voluminous plaid proved inconvenient for war, as evidenced in various accounts of Highland armies discarding their plaids before entering battle. As military life grew more organised, the intricate folding/pleating, draping and pinning of the plaid needed for a smart, soldierly appearance was considered too time-consuming. The knee-length skirt-type garment called a kilt – a term probably deriving from the Old Norse verb kjalta, to tuck up around the body – now came to prominence.

Perhaps originating in the 1600s, but not specifically recorded until later, the small kilt or walking kilt, known as the fèileadh beag, filibeg or philabeg, was a single width of cloth worn below the belt only, to just above the knees. Equivalent to the bottom half of the great plaid, reputedly early kilts were actually adapted from existing plaids but by the late 18th century new garments were being fashioned that, unlike plaids, used only one width of woven cloth. Laid flat they comprised three sections – a central pleated area worn at the back and two flat aprons, one folding over the other to form the front. The top third of the pleats was sewn down and before long the early fold-like pleats were being pressed flat with a hot iron to create crisp box pleats. Later, in the 1820s, box pleats largely gave way to narrower knife pleating, which demanded more sophisticated tailoring skills. At first long pins were used to secure the kilt, but as these damaged the fabric were superseded by ribbon laces, buttons and, more recently, leather straps. By comparison with the massive, unshaped plaid, the kilt was – and still is – a carefully-crafted garment.

The development of tartan
Tartan is an iconic symbol of Scottish identity, but one with a complicated history. After the 1707 Act of Union tartan became a patriotic Scottish emblem worn by men and women – not only Highlanders but many English-speaking Scots from the Lowlands. The distinctive chequered materials that we now recognise as tartan were known to the ancient Celts, an early citing that of Greek historian Diodorus Siculus in his universal history, Bibliotheca historica (c60-30 BC), describing how the Gauls wore “…striped mantles… covered with numerous small squares of many colours”. This Gallic link perhaps explains how ‘tartan’ could conceivably derive from the French word tirtaine for a woollen cloth or tartarin (‘Tartar cloth’). Early etymology is hazy, but by 1618 English traveller John Taylor observed that Highlanders at Braemar were wearing a “warm stuff of diverse colours which they call tartan”.

Tartan is now defined as a woollen cloth woven in stripes of various colours and widths in a pattern called a ‘sett’, the same sequence of coloured bands repeated in warp and weft, creating squares. Designs vary widely, colour choices probably initially determined by available natural dyestuffs, although during the 1800s vibrant chemical dyes were developed, adding bold, easy-to-use colours to the palette. Already by the early 1700s great ingenuity was required in the selection and organisation of coloured stripes and the women responsible for tartan production would first present new designs on pieces of wood, or ‘pattern sticks’. Thus certain setts originated in specific localities and this partially explains how, if a family or clan hailed from a particular area, they developed a close connection to the tartan sett traditionally woven there. However, this did not equate to a designated ‘clan tartan’, for more than one family from a specific island or district might wear the same tartan.

Much speculation surrounds tartan and it remains unclear whether some clan tartans may have evolved before their recorded development in the 19th century. Some authorities cite how when Jacobite clans gathered at the Battle of Killiecrankie, 1689, the followers of different chieftains were identified by plaids bearing red or yellow over-stripes. Conceivably, these unique, recognisable stripes were added to the pattern of a generic plaid using yarn that effectively represented a form of household livery, echoing the wider custom of servants wearing their lords’ ancestral colours. Indeed, being prized possessions, kilts and other tartan garments were often handed down from father to son, preserving a sense of continuity within a family. Yet a man could wear what he liked and could always order a new sett according to personal fancy.

Tartan became closely associated with Scottish clans who supported the Jacobite cause between the late-1600s, and mid-1700s. As part of a series of measures aimed at bringing the rebels under government control and perhaps to discourage blatant political displays of tartan as a nationalist symbol, the Dress Act or Disarming Act of 1746 made ‘the Highland dress’ including tartan or a kilt illegal in Scotland, except among the Highland regiments of the British Army. Indeed, beginning with the famous Black Watch in the 1720s/1730s, all the Scottish companies raised north of Stirling during the 18th century were designated Highland regiments and all wore blue bonnets, kilts or tartan ‘trews’ (trousers) on parade and in battle, to proclaim their Scottish identity.

Romantic revival
Today, it is still popularly believed that Queen Victoria and/or Sir Walter Scott ‘invented’ tartan as part of the 19th century romantic revival of interest in the Scottish Highlands. However, we should refer back to Scottish writer, poet and literary collector, James McPherson, who published the poetry cycle Ossian in the 1760s – an epic work claiming to be his ‘translation’ of newly-discovered writings of a 3rd-century bard. Later exposed as fiction, nonetheless in this stirring saga McPherson conjured up a powerful image of the tartan-wearing Highland clansman as a heroic warrior. A creation myth originating in the ‘wild’ Scottish Highlands, Ossian was not only highly influential in the European Romantic movement in literature, but also offered a culturally weakened Scotland a welcome new sense of its own identity.

Later, in 1820 the poet and novelist, Sir Walter Scott was instrumental in founding The Celtic Society to support the language, music, literature and culture of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. The Society played a major role in organising the festivities surrounding George IV’s historic visit to Edinburgh in 1822 – the first visit to Scotland in 171 years by a reigning monarch. The unprecedented display of colourful tartans and pageantry sparked increased interest and raised questions as to who should wear which tartans. Various books were published, notably The Scottish Gael, 1831, which prompted the Scottish tartan industry to invent clan tartans, and the Vestiarium Scoticum (1842), a dubious publication showing plates of supposed clan tartans, followed by further similar works. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert first visited the Highlands in the early-1840s, later purchasing Balmoral, the rebuilding of which made extensive use of tartan in the interior decor. The royal couple became keen devotees of Scottish culture, hosting ‘Highland’ games on their estate and dressing their children in tartan, the Balmoral still used as a royal tartan today.