Tartan colours Modern Ancient Weathered Muted

[OC Richard]

Putting aside "hunting" "dress" etc variants, nowadays when kilt-shopping we can be faced with these four options (sorry that's the closed "muted" I could find)



I'd like to know more about the timings of these.

About Modern Colours (upper left) Wiki tells me that the first aniline dye was "aniline purple" AKA "Perkin's mauve" AKA "mauveine, invented in 1856.

This was followed by "fuchsine" (1856) "induline" (1863, blue, black) and "safranin" (1878).

Were these various dyes introduced into tartans piecemeal as they were invented, or did the larger weavers wholly switch over?

Looking at those dates I'd guess that by the 1870s aniline dyes would have overtaken the old dyes.

Next to appear were Ancient Colours (upper right) or as they are sometimes called in old catalogues "Vegetable Colourings".

I've not been able to pin down a date.

My 1907 Leckie Graham catalogue doesn't mention these in its list of tartans available in kilting fabrics, but does mention them in their list of "tartan Saxony rugs" but only for Gordon.

There are three in their list of "silk tartan Windsor scarves" Gordon, Munro, and Stewart.

Interestingly I can find no mention of "ancient" or "vegetable" colours in The Kilt: A Manual Of Scottish National Dress (Edinburgh, Andrew Elliot, 1914) though it is of interest that the word "vest" is exclusively used for what today in Scotland is called a "waistcoat".

The earliest image I've seen that might show "ancient" colours is an illustration in Forsyth's 1909 catalogue



A 1978 catalogue offers 264 tartans in Ancient Colours and only 186 in "ordinary" colours which testifies to the popularity of the "ancient" scheme.

Happily we know all about the introduction of what we normally call Weathered Colours (lower left) today. That colour-scheme was introduced, with hyperbolic fanfare, by the weaver D C Dalgliesh in the late 1940s. He called the scheme "Reproduction Colours" but at some point (when??) Lochcarron copied the scheme entirely, dubbing it "Weathered Colours" which name has stuck.




Then there are the popular Muted Colours (lower right) which are exclusive to the weaver House Of Edgar. I'd love to know when they created this colour-scheme.

There are other weavers who had/have colours they call "muted" but these are quite different, and in some cases correspond to the "reproduction"/"weathered" scheme.

The elephant in the room are Wilsons of Bannockburn colours, pre-aniline traditional colours. Sadly no-one seems to offer a full range of tartans in Wilsons colours, though the weaver Strathmore offers a few https://www.strathmorewoollen.co.uk/?s=WOB