.THE HISTORY OF THE KILT
IN THE BEGINNING
If you were to travel back in time and visit the Highlands of Scotland 1000 years ago, you wouldn’t see anything even remotely
resembling the modern kilt. The standard garment of the Gael was a tunic called a léine. This is the Gaelic word for “shirt” and the
styles varied according to the time period. Initially it was a rather simple long tunic, pulled on over the head, and worn either fulllength
or to the knee. By the sixteenth century the léine had evolved into an elaborate garment that was very full, having sleeves
that hung down to the knees. The most common color was saffron, although they were often undyed. Over this a woolen shawl or
wrap was often worn. This mantle was called a brat in Ireland, and in later centuries was called a plaid in Scots Gaelic (the word
originally meant “blanket”). Though named clan tartans did not exist in this early period, these wraps could very well have been of
some tartan pattern. Archaeological evidence shows tartan cloth being worn in Scotland from the third or fourth century.
THE BELTED PLAID
It is this tartan wrap that would later evolve into the kilt. As stated previously, the fashion in sixteenth century Gaelic Scotland was
for very full clothing. The cost of wool dropping towards the end of the sixteenth century in Scotland, coupled with a cooling
climate, gave rise to ever-larger wraps or plaids. At a certain point, people began to gather these large wraps into folds and belt
them around the waist. This is what we call the belted plaid. In Gaelic it was called either feileadh-mor, which means “great
wrap,” or breacan-an-feileadh, which means “tartan wrap.” The earliest mention of this garment in the historic record comes from
The Life of Red Hugh O’Donnell, written in Irish Gaelic in 1594. This work describes Scottish mercenaries from the Hebrides being
noticeable among the Irish because of the difference in their dress. The Scots wore their belts outside their mantles – the belted
plaid! This garment was about 4 to 6 yards long and made from two lengths of 25-30" wide cloth sewn together. The length of the
cloth was gathered and belted at the waist, with the lower part falling to the knees and the upper part being brought up to the
shoulders and arranged in any number of ways. This garment was the common dress of the Highland male during the seventeenth
and first half of the eighteenth centuries.
THE PHILLABEG
Phillabeg is the Anglicized spelling of the Gaelic feileadh-beag, which means, “little wrap.” This garment was essentially the lower
half of the belted plaid. Many today use “phillabeg” to refer to the modern tailored kilt, but the original phillabeg was untailored.
Like the belted plaid, it consisted of a length of cloth about 4 yards long, but only about 25” wide. It would be gathered loosely into
folds and belted about the waist, the bottom reaching to just above the knee and the top few inches overlapping the belt. Often an
separate length of tartan would be worn over the shoulders for warmth or protection from the elements. Most Highland Dress
historians admit to uncertainly about when the phillabeg originated, but by the early eighteenth century it was in widespread use.
Thomas Rawlinson, an Englishman, is documented as “inventing” the phillabeg in the first quarter of the eighteenth century.
However there are paintings and armorial bearings that depict men in what appear to be phillabegs pre-dating Rawlinson. Most
likely the feileadh-beag came about as a natural extension of the feileadh-mor, the fashion spreading over time.
THE KILT
The tailored kilt differs from the phillabeg in that it has regular, sewn down pleats. In other words, it is an actual tailored garment.
The earliest examples we have are military kilts from the 1790s. These first tailored kilts were made from an average of 4 yards of
cloth, and were box pleated to the stripe. There was no tapering at the waist, and the length of the kilt was selvage to selvage
(about 25”). Tailored kilts for civilian wear were at first pleated to nothing (i.e. to no particular line or pattern), then about 1820
pleated to the stripe. The amount of cloth used in the kilt grew over the course of the nineteenth century. In 1853 the Gordon
Highlanders became the first regiment to adopt the knife pleat. By the year 1900 knife pleating had become the norm in civilian
kilts and the idea of “pleating to sett” (i.e. arranging the pleats to mimic the pattern of the tartan) was becoming popular. The
standard kilt of today is made from a nominal 8 yards of cloth and is knife pleated, though other styles remain available.
WHAT IS TARTAN?
Tartan refers to a pattern of interlocking stripes, running in both the warp and weft of the cloth (horizontal and vertical), or any
representation of such a woven design in other media. Typically one thinks of "clan tartans" -- tartan designs that represent certain
Scottish clans and families. This was not the case in the past. The earliest known tartan in Scotland can be dated to the third or
fourth century AD. In other parts of the world, tartan cloth has been found dating to as early as 3000 BC. Virtually everywhere
there was woven cloth, people created tartan designs. Yet only in Scotland has tartan been given such cultural significance. Why?
Originally tartan designs had no names and no symbolic meaning. All tartan was hand woven and usually supplied locally. While it
may have been true that certain designs were more common in some areas than others, no regulated "clan tartan" system ever
existed. Tartan in general, however, came to be extremely common in Scottish Highland culture. By the seventeenth century,
tartan clothing was recognized far and wide as characteristic of Highland dress. Tartan was so identified with the Highland Gael
that after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the British government, in the Act of Proscription, forbade the wearing of tartan in the
Highlands in an attempt to suppress the rebellious Scottish culture.
By the end of the eighteenth century, large-scale commercial weavers had taken up the production of tartan. The most notable of
these is the firm of William Wilson & Sons of Bannockburn. This firm was begun sometime around 1765 and became quite
successful, being the sole supplier of tartan cloth to the Highland Regiments. Because they were producing cloth in such large
quantities, they developed standard colors and patterns early on. At first they assigned numbers to identify the patterns, but soon
began to give them names. These not only included names of Highland clans, but also town names, and sometimes just fanciful
names. These were usually not meant to imply any restrictive association. They were used simply to identify one tartan pattern
from another (and perhaps even to increase cloth sales – after all, the Caledonia tartan sounds much more appealing than tartan
#42). In Wilsons' Key Pattern Book of 1819, some 250 tartans are included, about 100 of which were given names.
In the early nineteenth century, the idea began to gel that the names of the tartans represented real connections to the clans.
Scots expatriates who grew up outside of the Highland line began to get interested in preserving Highland culture. In 1815 the
Highland Society of London wrote to the clan chiefs asking them to submit samples of their clan tartans. Many chiefs had no idea
what "their clan tartan" was supposed to be and so either wrote to tartan suppliers such as Wilsons, or asked the older men of their
clan if they recalled any particular tartan being worn.
In 1822 King George IV visited Edinburgh in a veritable "tartan fest" partly organized by Sir Walter Scott. All the clan chiefs were
asked to come out to greet the King in their proper clan tartan. Since many did not have a clan tartan no doubt new tartans were
created, or old ones renamed, for the occasion. From this point on the idea was firmly established that in order to even be a proper
tartan, it had to be a named tartan. The development of tartan lore over the course of the nineteenth century is complex and
beyond the scope of this brief introduction. But with the blessing of the clan chiefs by the end of the nineteenth century the
custom was firmly established that tartan was representative of clan.
While clan tartans are the most well known, tartans can in fact represent many different things. Some tartans represent families,
towns, districts, corporations, occupations, individuals, events -- you name it! What makes a tartan "official" is not age or antiquity,
but whether it has the approval of the governing body of what that tartan represents. If a clan chief, or a state legislature, or the
CEO of a company says this is the official tartan, it is so, whether the tartan is brand-new or two hundred years old.
Despite this, there are no rules governing what tartan you may wear. However, since tartans today have meaning, when you wear
a tartan you identify yourself with what the tartan represents. Most select a tartan that identifies with some aspect of their
heritage. If there is a tartan for your surname, that would be an obvious choice. But there is nothing wrong with wearing a tartan
for another branch of your family. Ultimately, the choice of what tartan to wear is personal. Whatever you choose, you should
know your tartan and your reasons for wearing it. Always be prepared to answer the question, “What’s your tartan?”
TARTAN COLOR TERMS
Tartan terminology is not very self-explanatory, and often times counter-intuitive. We must begin with the terms modern and
ancient. Contrary to what anyone might assume, ancient tartans are not older than modern tartans.
A better term for modern would actually be standard – the standard colors of that particular tartan. Ancient refers to the same
tartan produced in lighter tones, meant to reflect what that tartan might look like after many years of fading. It is very much like
the idea of stone washed blue jeans; purchased new, already looking old. The idea is that older, vegetable dyed tartans would not
be as colorfast as modern chemical dyed cloth, therefore fading would happen more quickly over time. This has led to a
misconception that all old vegetable dyes tartans were very light in color. This is not true. Traditional vegetable dyes are quite
capable of producing darker shades.
Because the lighter colors were meant to represent what an old, faded tartan might look like, the manufacturers decided to call
them ancient, and the standard colors came to be called modern by default.
This idea of producing tartans in lighter shades dates to between the World Wars. The story is that a man was seen at a Highland
Games wearing an old kilt that was quite faded, the tartan appearing lighter on the exposed portion of the pleats, while retaining
the original darker colors inside the pleats. This was the supposed inspiration for the ancient color scheme.
Another common tartan color term is weathered. This is an even more dramatic fading of the tartan, usually reducing the colors to
browns, greys, and muted shades of red. Inspired by the colors of tartan cloth unearthed after being buried in the soil for
centuries, this color scheme was introduced by weavers D. C. Dalgleish in Selkirk, Scotland, after WWII. They called these washed
out colors reproduction. Other woolen mills would produce similar colored tartans under the now more common name weathered.
These are not the only names one will encounter. Others include muted and antique. But the idea is the same – in all cases these
terms refer to the same tartan produced in differing shades of the same general colors. This is possible because the specific shade
of color is not essential in defining the tartan. A tartan is defined by the particular pattern and the basic colors used (i.e. red,
green, blue, etc.) The specific hue of color (i.e. dark red, or light green, or navy blue) is a matter of preference.
Other terms refer to different tartans entirely, however. The most common of these would be hunting and dress. Again, these
names give rise to much confusion. The person hearing them for the first time might assume that one went hunting in a “hunting
tartan” and that “dress tartans” are for formal occasions. Such is not the case.
Generally speaking, a hunting tartan is simply a tartan that is based more in greens and blues, and often browns. The term hunting
here refers to the fact that these tartans use more earth-tone colors, and has nothing to do with the actual usage of the tartan.
And there is no reason at all why one could not wear a kilt in a hunting tartan to a formal occasion. What makes a Highland outfit
formal or casual are the various accessories worn with the kilt – not the tartan of which the kilt is made.
Which leads to the subject of dress tartans. Again, generally speaking, a dress tartan is a tartan using white as a major color.
There are exceptions to this rule. The Dress MacLeod tartan, for example, is yellow. The inspiration for dress tartans goes back to
eighteenth century women’s fashion. It was typical at that time for women to wear an earasaid (a large wrap) made from a white
or cream based tartan. Many dress tartans today are simply versions of the standard clan tartan with a main color changed to
white, or extra white added to the pattern.
These are some of the terms that one encounters most frequently when discussing tartan. And as tartan is very much a
subjective art form, there will be exceptions to these rules. Hopefully this little lexicon will help to clear up some
confusion among the ranks!
www.tartanauthority.com/ The Scottish Tartans Authority
www.scottish-tartans-world-register.com/ The Scottish Tartans World Register
www.scottishtartans.org/ The Scottish Tartans Museum
IN THE BEGINNING
If you were to travel back in time and visit the Highlands of Scotland 1000 years ago, you wouldn’t see anything even remotely
resembling the modern kilt. The standard garment of the Gael was a tunic called a léine. This is the Gaelic word for “shirt” and the
styles varied according to the time period. Initially it was a rather simple long tunic, pulled on over the head, and worn either fulllength
or to the knee. By the sixteenth century the léine had evolved into an elaborate garment that was very full, having sleeves
that hung down to the knees. The most common color was saffron, although they were often undyed. Over this a woolen shawl or
wrap was often worn. This mantle was called a brat in Ireland, and in later centuries was called a plaid in Scots Gaelic (the word
originally meant “blanket”). Though named clan tartans did not exist in this early period, these wraps could very well have been of
some tartan pattern. Archaeological evidence shows tartan cloth being worn in Scotland from the third or fourth century.
THE BELTED PLAID
It is this tartan wrap that would later evolve into the kilt. As stated previously, the fashion in sixteenth century Gaelic Scotland was
for very full clothing. The cost of wool dropping towards the end of the sixteenth century in Scotland, coupled with a cooling
climate, gave rise to ever-larger wraps or plaids. At a certain point, people began to gather these large wraps into folds and belt
them around the waist. This is what we call the belted plaid. In Gaelic it was called either feileadh-mor, which means “great
wrap,” or breacan-an-feileadh, which means “tartan wrap.” The earliest mention of this garment in the historic record comes from
The Life of Red Hugh O’Donnell, written in Irish Gaelic in 1594. This work describes Scottish mercenaries from the Hebrides being
noticeable among the Irish because of the difference in their dress. The Scots wore their belts outside their mantles – the belted
plaid! This garment was about 4 to 6 yards long and made from two lengths of 25-30" wide cloth sewn together. The length of the
cloth was gathered and belted at the waist, with the lower part falling to the knees and the upper part being brought up to the
shoulders and arranged in any number of ways. This garment was the common dress of the Highland male during the seventeenth
and first half of the eighteenth centuries.
THE PHILLABEG
Phillabeg is the Anglicized spelling of the Gaelic feileadh-beag, which means, “little wrap.” This garment was essentially the lower
half of the belted plaid. Many today use “phillabeg” to refer to the modern tailored kilt, but the original phillabeg was untailored.
Like the belted plaid, it consisted of a length of cloth about 4 yards long, but only about 25” wide. It would be gathered loosely into
folds and belted about the waist, the bottom reaching to just above the knee and the top few inches overlapping the belt. Often an
separate length of tartan would be worn over the shoulders for warmth or protection from the elements. Most Highland Dress
historians admit to uncertainly about when the phillabeg originated, but by the early eighteenth century it was in widespread use.
Thomas Rawlinson, an Englishman, is documented as “inventing” the phillabeg in the first quarter of the eighteenth century.
However there are paintings and armorial bearings that depict men in what appear to be phillabegs pre-dating Rawlinson. Most
likely the feileadh-beag came about as a natural extension of the feileadh-mor, the fashion spreading over time.
THE KILT
The tailored kilt differs from the phillabeg in that it has regular, sewn down pleats. In other words, it is an actual tailored garment.
The earliest examples we have are military kilts from the 1790s. These first tailored kilts were made from an average of 4 yards of
cloth, and were box pleated to the stripe. There was no tapering at the waist, and the length of the kilt was selvage to selvage
(about 25”). Tailored kilts for civilian wear were at first pleated to nothing (i.e. to no particular line or pattern), then about 1820
pleated to the stripe. The amount of cloth used in the kilt grew over the course of the nineteenth century. In 1853 the Gordon
Highlanders became the first regiment to adopt the knife pleat. By the year 1900 knife pleating had become the norm in civilian
kilts and the idea of “pleating to sett” (i.e. arranging the pleats to mimic the pattern of the tartan) was becoming popular. The
standard kilt of today is made from a nominal 8 yards of cloth and is knife pleated, though other styles remain available.
WHAT IS TARTAN?
Tartan refers to a pattern of interlocking stripes, running in both the warp and weft of the cloth (horizontal and vertical), or any
representation of such a woven design in other media. Typically one thinks of "clan tartans" -- tartan designs that represent certain
Scottish clans and families. This was not the case in the past. The earliest known tartan in Scotland can be dated to the third or
fourth century AD. In other parts of the world, tartan cloth has been found dating to as early as 3000 BC. Virtually everywhere
there was woven cloth, people created tartan designs. Yet only in Scotland has tartan been given such cultural significance. Why?
Originally tartan designs had no names and no symbolic meaning. All tartan was hand woven and usually supplied locally. While it
may have been true that certain designs were more common in some areas than others, no regulated "clan tartan" system ever
existed. Tartan in general, however, came to be extremely common in Scottish Highland culture. By the seventeenth century,
tartan clothing was recognized far and wide as characteristic of Highland dress. Tartan was so identified with the Highland Gael
that after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the British government, in the Act of Proscription, forbade the wearing of tartan in the
Highlands in an attempt to suppress the rebellious Scottish culture.
By the end of the eighteenth century, large-scale commercial weavers had taken up the production of tartan. The most notable of
these is the firm of William Wilson & Sons of Bannockburn. This firm was begun sometime around 1765 and became quite
successful, being the sole supplier of tartan cloth to the Highland Regiments. Because they were producing cloth in such large
quantities, they developed standard colors and patterns early on. At first they assigned numbers to identify the patterns, but soon
began to give them names. These not only included names of Highland clans, but also town names, and sometimes just fanciful
names. These were usually not meant to imply any restrictive association. They were used simply to identify one tartan pattern
from another (and perhaps even to increase cloth sales – after all, the Caledonia tartan sounds much more appealing than tartan
#42). In Wilsons' Key Pattern Book of 1819, some 250 tartans are included, about 100 of which were given names.
In the early nineteenth century, the idea began to gel that the names of the tartans represented real connections to the clans.
Scots expatriates who grew up outside of the Highland line began to get interested in preserving Highland culture. In 1815 the
Highland Society of London wrote to the clan chiefs asking them to submit samples of their clan tartans. Many chiefs had no idea
what "their clan tartan" was supposed to be and so either wrote to tartan suppliers such as Wilsons, or asked the older men of their
clan if they recalled any particular tartan being worn.
In 1822 King George IV visited Edinburgh in a veritable "tartan fest" partly organized by Sir Walter Scott. All the clan chiefs were
asked to come out to greet the King in their proper clan tartan. Since many did not have a clan tartan no doubt new tartans were
created, or old ones renamed, for the occasion. From this point on the idea was firmly established that in order to even be a proper
tartan, it had to be a named tartan. The development of tartan lore over the course of the nineteenth century is complex and
beyond the scope of this brief introduction. But with the blessing of the clan chiefs by the end of the nineteenth century the
custom was firmly established that tartan was representative of clan.
While clan tartans are the most well known, tartans can in fact represent many different things. Some tartans represent families,
towns, districts, corporations, occupations, individuals, events -- you name it! What makes a tartan "official" is not age or antiquity,
but whether it has the approval of the governing body of what that tartan represents. If a clan chief, or a state legislature, or the
CEO of a company says this is the official tartan, it is so, whether the tartan is brand-new or two hundred years old.
Despite this, there are no rules governing what tartan you may wear. However, since tartans today have meaning, when you wear
a tartan you identify yourself with what the tartan represents. Most select a tartan that identifies with some aspect of their
heritage. If there is a tartan for your surname, that would be an obvious choice. But there is nothing wrong with wearing a tartan
for another branch of your family. Ultimately, the choice of what tartan to wear is personal. Whatever you choose, you should
know your tartan and your reasons for wearing it. Always be prepared to answer the question, “What’s your tartan?”
TARTAN COLOR TERMS
Tartan terminology is not very self-explanatory, and often times counter-intuitive. We must begin with the terms modern and
ancient. Contrary to what anyone might assume, ancient tartans are not older than modern tartans.
A better term for modern would actually be standard – the standard colors of that particular tartan. Ancient refers to the same
tartan produced in lighter tones, meant to reflect what that tartan might look like after many years of fading. It is very much like
the idea of stone washed blue jeans; purchased new, already looking old. The idea is that older, vegetable dyed tartans would not
be as colorfast as modern chemical dyed cloth, therefore fading would happen more quickly over time. This has led to a
misconception that all old vegetable dyes tartans were very light in color. This is not true. Traditional vegetable dyes are quite
capable of producing darker shades.
Because the lighter colors were meant to represent what an old, faded tartan might look like, the manufacturers decided to call
them ancient, and the standard colors came to be called modern by default.
This idea of producing tartans in lighter shades dates to between the World Wars. The story is that a man was seen at a Highland
Games wearing an old kilt that was quite faded, the tartan appearing lighter on the exposed portion of the pleats, while retaining
the original darker colors inside the pleats. This was the supposed inspiration for the ancient color scheme.
Another common tartan color term is weathered. This is an even more dramatic fading of the tartan, usually reducing the colors to
browns, greys, and muted shades of red. Inspired by the colors of tartan cloth unearthed after being buried in the soil for
centuries, this color scheme was introduced by weavers D. C. Dalgleish in Selkirk, Scotland, after WWII. They called these washed
out colors reproduction. Other woolen mills would produce similar colored tartans under the now more common name weathered.
These are not the only names one will encounter. Others include muted and antique. But the idea is the same – in all cases these
terms refer to the same tartan produced in differing shades of the same general colors. This is possible because the specific shade
of color is not essential in defining the tartan. A tartan is defined by the particular pattern and the basic colors used (i.e. red,
green, blue, etc.) The specific hue of color (i.e. dark red, or light green, or navy blue) is a matter of preference.
Other terms refer to different tartans entirely, however. The most common of these would be hunting and dress. Again, these
names give rise to much confusion. The person hearing them for the first time might assume that one went hunting in a “hunting
tartan” and that “dress tartans” are for formal occasions. Such is not the case.
Generally speaking, a hunting tartan is simply a tartan that is based more in greens and blues, and often browns. The term hunting
here refers to the fact that these tartans use more earth-tone colors, and has nothing to do with the actual usage of the tartan.
And there is no reason at all why one could not wear a kilt in a hunting tartan to a formal occasion. What makes a Highland outfit
formal or casual are the various accessories worn with the kilt – not the tartan of which the kilt is made.
Which leads to the subject of dress tartans. Again, generally speaking, a dress tartan is a tartan using white as a major color.
There are exceptions to this rule. The Dress MacLeod tartan, for example, is yellow. The inspiration for dress tartans goes back to
eighteenth century women’s fashion. It was typical at that time for women to wear an earasaid (a large wrap) made from a white
or cream based tartan. Many dress tartans today are simply versions of the standard clan tartan with a main color changed to
white, or extra white added to the pattern.
These are some of the terms that one encounters most frequently when discussing tartan. And as tartan is very much a
subjective art form, there will be exceptions to these rules. Hopefully this little lexicon will help to clear up some
confusion among the ranks!
www.tartanauthority.com/ The Scottish Tartans Authority
www.scottish-tartans-world-register.com/ The Scottish Tartans World Register
www.scottishtartans.org/ The Scottish Tartans Museum