The good, the plaid and on how tartan bounced
Scottish tailor and fashion designer Vixy Rae reveals
Embroidered into our culture and history, tartan has become a worldwide symbol of Scotland.
From clans to catwalks, shortbread tins to the silver screen, the famous checked design is known around the globe. Now, tailor and fashion designer Vixy Rae, who co-owns Scotland’s oldest tailors, Stewart Christie in Edinburgh, has delved the history of tartan, exploring its origins as well as its links with art and culture.
“Tartan is a bold, unshakeable, resonant statement of Scottishness,” says Vixy. “It echoes with pride, unity, passion, rebellion. It just depends how, and if, you choose to wear it.”
Here, Vixy shares some fascinating facts about tartan. So, what’s in a name? Scholars agree that ideas behind the origin of the word tartan vary greatly; there is no fixed answer.
Tararin was the French word for a coarsely woven cloth of blended wool and linen. Then there is tiritana from the old Spanish – it’s the word for a silk fabric, from tiritar meaning to rustle. I prefer the Gaelic claim, coming from the words tuar meaning colour, and tan meaning district, matched with tarsainn meaning across.
This supports the theory that the cloth was a recognition of region rather than clanship. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to support this claim. Tartan is a woven fabric, which means the strands or threads are interlaced into each other to create the cloth. The woven cloth is made up of the warp and the weft (or, delightfully, woof, depending where you live).
The warp is the longest thread which runs the length of the cloth, and the weft is the thread which goes across the width of the cloth. Tartan is made up from what is called a twill weave...in its simplest form, twill is two strands under and two strands over.