Colors and Tartans

Colors and Tartan
©2009 Matthew A. C. Newsome, GTS, FSA Scot

Recently I received a phone call from a gentleman who had purchased a neck tie in his family tartan from the Scottish Tartans Museum gift shop. He was concerned because when he got it home, he discovered that it did not match another tie he had purchased in his tartan some 40 years ago in Scotland.

The pattern was the same, he told me, but the colors were different. After speaking to him for a while I surmised that the colors were actually the same in the two tartan ties, generally speaking. What was different were the specific hues of the colors in the tartans. He was concerned that the hue change meant that one neck tie might not be in the “authentic” tartan for his family.

I assured him that both ties were fine. His older tie was likely made from cloth from a different woolen mill, using different dye lots, and in any case was now 40 years old and likely faded with age. There was really no reason to expect the colors of a vintage neck tie to match a tartan garment purchased new today.

But confusion regarding tartan color is common. All too often when someone asks me to show them a sample of their tartan, they look at the swatch I provide and shake their head. “No,” they say, “that’s not it. The tartan I was shown in Scotland was a more vibrant red than this.” Or they will say, “My tartan is bottle green, this is more of a Kelly green.” Their eye is getting hung up on the particular hues and they are not seeing the actual tartan pattern.

Someone recently asked if I could provide pantone numbers that would identify the “correct” colors of their tartan. The pantone color system was developed for inks and is used to achieve a precise color match. But this simply has no relevancy in the tartan industry – a fact that few seem to appreciate.

I think the general assumption is that tartan is a regulated entity and that there exists somewhere – in the record books of Lord Lyon, or the files of the Scottish Tartans Authority, or perhaps in the annals of the new National Tartan Register – the precise minute details about how each tartan must be produced to be authentic. Such is hardly the case.

When the information about a tartan is recorded – whether in the National Register or any other body – what is specified is the design pattern (called the “sett,” which is short for “setting”) and the general colors used. In most cases there is no need to get more specific than “red” or “green” or “blue” or “black.” Only when there is more than one shade of the same color used in the tartan does it become important to differentiate between “light green” and “dark green” for instance.

This is most common in the older, traditional tartans. In some more modern tartan designs, where the creator of the tartan is still alive and kicking, he or she might express certain preferences or requirements regarding the specific colors used in the design. Likewise a clan chief may express a preference for a given color palette for his clan tartan.

But none of this changes the fact that the specific hues of colors have never been regulated in the tartan industry. Why this is becomes clear if one simply recalls the origins of the tartan. Originally all tartan was produced by hand in small quantities on home looms. The yarns were dyed, usually quite locally, again in small batches (small, at least compared to our modern industrial scales). Weavers created tartan patterns from the colors of yarns they had available and there was no real reason or need for consistency in color. Such could hardly be guaranteed, at any rate, when you consider the many different weavers and dyers that were producing cloth all across the Highlands.

The first real attempt to standardize dye lots was undertaken by the major tartan producer William Wilson & Sons of Bannockburn. There is evidence that Wilsons was using standardize colors by the 1780s (note, this is well before the introduction of aniline dyes in 1856). Wilsons was a major player in the tartan industry, the first to really produce the cloth on a large scale, and moreover was supplying the military with their uniform tartans. And military uniforms require… well, uniformity! So it was important to be able to match one length of cloth with another of the same tartan.

However, I stress that this standardization of colors was not universal, but rather proprietary. The fact that Wilsons was using a standard color system did not mean that one could find those same colors used by other woolen mills, or individual cottage weavers.

And this is, really, the way it still is today. Tartan woolen mills will have their house color palettes and they may be quite different from one another. Lochcarron’s version of the MacDonald clan tartan will use slightly different colors from Strathmore’s version of the same. And neither will look like the MacDonald tartan as woven by The House of Edgar (to name but three of Scotland’s top tartan producers). And why should they match? Having slightly different colors is one way these mills have of distinguishing themselves, and giving their customers a reason to select their product over that of a competitor. Tartan is a tradition, yes, but it is also a business – as it has been from the beginning.

And, of course, this means that the individual artisan weaver is still free to select the colors of his or her choice for the tartans that they create.

Keep in mind that all of this deals with specific hues, not colors in a general sense. The general colors are very important in defining a tartan. If you change the white stripe in the Lamont tartan to yellow, for example, you no longer have the Lamont tartan – you have Gordon. But a weaver is free to choose either scarlet or crimson for the red in their Royal Stewart, and it is still the Royal Stewart.

This freedom is why weavers can produce tartans in different forms such as ancient, modern, muted and weathered; which are all simply names for various color schemes, created with a change of hue. But readers of this column know that already!