PLAID IT ALL
Plaid is everywhere. ¶ “Tartan is the new black,” says San Francisco interior designer Scot Meacham Wood, who just launched his first fabric and home furnishings collection amid what is shaping up to be an El Niño year for plaid. Crossing categories from high-end fashion and home decor to lip balm, desk accessories and iPhone cases, the design world has gone mad for plaid.
“Plaid certainly is a perennial fall trend,” says Target spokeswoman Jessica Carlson. “There really isn’t a fall season you go through without seeing some variation. ... This season, though, we saw plaid really rising to the top as a very formidable trend and wanted to capitalize on that for our guests.”
To do that, the retailer has implemented a tartan “takeover,” rolling out to select stores and online on Sunday and featuring more than 50 plaid products by designer Adam Lippes, as well as other plaid items and themed packaging in every department. “We’ll have everything in our stores from [plaid] puffer coats to plaid Diet Coke bottles,” says Carlson. “You will find something in every department across the store in the plaid print.”
So why such an increase in plaid now? Wood believes the tidal wave stems from pop culture cues (“Outlander” fans unite!) as well as seasonal tradition and the attractive duality of the pattern. “There’s a kind of masculine, militaristic, very muscular aspect [to plaid],” he explains, “but it also has a very romantic side — inspiring beautiful images of windswept moors and heather. It can feel incredibly romantic and feminine as well.”
Discerning trendsters take note: Wood points out that while all tartans are plaids, not all plaids are tartans.
“If you look at a plaid, it is basically stripes running in a horizontal direction and stripes running in a vertical direction; that’s a plaid. If the arrangement of the stripes is exactly the same in both directions ... creating a grid pattern, that’s when you get into tartan territory.”
“Historically, it’s really fascinating,” he says, noting that in the mid-1700s the English government banned the wearing of tartan in Scotland in an effort to suppress rebellion. “That’s how profound the use of it can be.” Cue the bagpipes.