Clan tartans

Factual Questions
1

Kwyjibo’s thread in the Pit about his Scottish/English/British/whatever cow-orker reminded me of something.

I once saw a photo of Prince Charles wearing a kilt, which is nothing unusual (he does have the legs for it!). But he was also wearing a plaid shirt, which was not the same plaid as the kilt!

I was under the impression that since a kilt is a clan tartan, you’re supposed to wear a neutral or coordinating solid color with it. But not a generic plaid! Can he do that? Of course, he is the Prince of Wales, but as such, one would think he’d adhere even more firmly to custom! Unless I’m wrong about the custom…

2

As the whole thing about tartans indicating particular clans is a furphy (myth) created by 17th century (mainly english) romantic authors, I don’t suppose it really matters

For a history of the development of the tartans and kilts see this site: http://www.scottishtartans.org/museum.html

However, as pre-industrial era tartans had no particular significance, they were often mixed, so maybe Charlie is following on the old tradition.

3

I would suggest that the real objection to wearing two different tartans together is an aesthetic one. Clashing tartans is not a good look.

In the particular case of Prince Charles, one cannot assume that the shirt was necessarily just ‘a generic plaid’ as there are a variety of different tartans that he is entitled to wear.

4

Motog: Thank you for the link. Phooey; I did believe Sir Walter Scott.

APB: You’re right about clashing. This photo was taken after his divorce. “See,” I said to my mom. “This proves that some men, if they don’t have a wife to steer them, will wear plaid with plaid, plaid with stripes, black socks with shorts or white shoes when there’s snow on the ground. Or a suit coat with jeans, like Dad does.”

And I used the term “generic” by default. I wasn’t implying that he got the shirt at Tesco’s! Just that the plaid was smaller than that of the kilt, and the colors didn’t quite go.

5

You can wear any tartan you like in any combination that takes your fancy. Entitlement doesn’t come into it.

Clan tartan’s are, after all, a load of romanic whimsy and nonsense that the Victorians particuarly fell for. Take them a seriously as you like. The accepted response to self appointed tartan police who might pull you up about this is to grab the hem of their kilt, pull it over their head and tie off with their sporran.

Same rules apply to Prince Charles. Though you’d think that someone who has artistic leanings, as he claims to have, would be able to tell what clashes.

6

Heh! The above advice, combined with your handle, makes an excellent combination. There’s nothnig more futile than debating the Tartan Police, as they’ve bought the myth completely. The funny thing is, that the myth has essentially become reality. What started with a buncha ig’erent Victorians has become practice today.

7

Funny how a fiction created by a couple of Polish brothers (who only claimed to be of Scottish descent) as a get-rich-quick genealogy scheme has become a cherished tradition in just a few generations. “Clan Tartans” are a recent idea, but before that idea, people who lived in the same area tended to wear the same tartan simply because that’s what the local weavers were making.

It wouldn’t be unusual for all the Campbells in one particular area to wear the same three or four tartans, but the MacGregors who live next to them might also wear those tartans if they buy their plaid from the same weaver. Back then, from what I’ve read on the subject, the way to tell what clan a person was from was to ask him. In battle, the Highlanders would yell clan slogans as a means of identification, and occasionally they’d wear a snippet of a particular plant in their bonnets if there was a distinctive plant associated with the clan.

As for Prince Charles and his fashion sense, back in “the day”, the Scots Highlanders didn’t really worry too much about plaids clashing, they just liked to have a lot of colors and patterns in their clothes, so you might find a Highlander wearing a belted plaid (known in modern parlance as a “great kilt”) of one tartan pattern, a waistcoat of a second pattern, and a jacket of a third. To the modern eye, he’d clash horribly, but to a contemporary Highlander’s eye, he’d be quite well dressed. Of course, we live in the modern world, so it sounds to me as if the Prince was pretty badly dressed. I personally always wear a solid color with my kilt - and I make sure it’s not a color that clashes with my tartan.