Tartan: The history of the rebel cloth
TARTAN was a rebel cloth. It is well known that in the Act of Proscription following Culloden it was stated: “That from and after the first day of August [1747]….
In 1713, a distinctive Edinburgh Jacobite pattern was created, to allow mute opposition to the government to be expressed widely in civil society. Because tartan was not a seditious or treasonable statement or publication, its use lay beyond the scope of existing laws: everyone knew what it might mean, but no-one could prosecute it.
Strongly associated with masculinity and the military, evening dress based on tartan reflected these associations, from its polished buttons and epaulettes to the wearing of the clan badge a small distance from the edge of the kilt to allow the suggestion of an opening in the garment. Tartan became a fossilised British version of the Scottish rebel cloth, and as such was scorned and attacked by the cultural nationalists of the 1960s and 70s.
While “Ally” disappeared from the scene, the term “Tartan Army” endured as a description of Scotand football supporters, whose tartan outfits tended to get more extreme as the years progressed, not least to mark them out from England supporters, increasingly seen as badly behaved abroad from the Heysel disaster of 1985 onwards.
Tartan once again began to develop – most obviously at weddings where it was all but absent in 1975 and much closer to being ubiquitous by 2000, but also elsewhere – into a form of social bond, a collective statement of self. Tartan started to accompany, echo and even initiate fashion trends: fashion historians such as Jonathan Faiers noted that the 1990s grunge look made its way into Braveheart’s costumes, while Westwood’s designs also continued to evolve the way in which tartan was incorporated into style.
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