Review ‘Tartan’: Scottish Museum Tracks Famous Design

There’s something about tartan. Bedecked in this symbol-rich, gridded cloth were not only fact-or-fiction Scots such as Macbeth, William Wallace, and Flora MacDonald. To make a point, and the points seem as limitless as the tartan palette, punks in the ’80s wore it. So did King George IV, Idi Amin, the good people of Brigadoon, and Rosemary, mother of that famous demon baby. Vivienne Westwood made tartan a fashion must for the edgy, as did Queen Victoria for the warm-and-fuzzy.

Parliament’s Dress Act of 1746 mostly banned it as insurrectionist. The Battle of Culloden made Scottish iconography a crime against the new United Kingdom. Some years later, the last photograph of Elizabeth II shows her in a tartan skirt, bidding “fareweel tae Tarwathie” to one prime minister and anointing another who didn’t have enough time in office to buy a tartan tea tin in the Balmoral shop.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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There’s something about tartan. Bedecked in this symbol-rich, gridded cloth were not only fact-or-fiction Scots such as Macbeth, William Wallace, and Flora MacDonald. To make a point, and the points seem as limitless as the tartan palette, punks in the ’80s wore it. So did King George IV, Idi Amin, the good people of Brigadoon, and Rosemary, mother of that famous demon baby. Vivienne Westwood made tartan a fashion must for the edgy, as did Queen Victoria for the warm-and-fuzzy.

Parliament’s Dress Act of 1746 mostly banned it as insurrectionist. The Battle of Culloden made Scottish iconography a crime against the new United Kingdom. Some years later, the last photograph of Elizabeth II shows her in a tartan skirt, bidding “fareweel tae Tarwathie” to one prime minister and anointing another who didn’t have enough time in office to buy a tartan tea tin in the Balmoral shop.