Caledonia - A Tartan for the Color Blind

[Riverkilt]

Have known some color blind folks and the adaptations they make.

The versitility of the Caledonia tartan came up on another thread. Looked back at my pics and saw that I've worn my Caledonia tartan kilt with light blue, denim, purple, green, brown, yellow, and gray shirts. Have worn the Caledonia tartan with green, brown, gray, and blue kilt hose.

And there are more colors that go with the Caledonia tartan.

So, it seems it would be a perfect tartan for a color blind person to wear - just kilt up in the Caledonia and it doesn't much matter what color shirt and kilt hose you wear with it - its gonna work.

Any color blind rabble with more informed opinions?

[davidlpope]

Depending on one's sensibilities, ANY tartan might be perfect for a color blind person. Simply chuck out the notion that one's kilt needs to match one's hose or shirt...

[David Thorpe]

...Simply chuck out the notion that one's kilt needs to match one's hose or shirt...

Well there's "matching" and then there's eye-gouging, migrane-inducing clashing, "sensibilities" be damned.

[Riverkilt]

Well yeah...and that brings up my stories of color blind friends adventures in fashion...

[rondo]

Once I adopted the position that the tartan/kilt is nuetral [like blue jeans] it became much easier to put together nice combinations. I still like my leathers to coordinate some but I have also started doing brown/black accesories etc. Other than small, simple patterns [tattersal] I avoid complex paterns on shirt/hose.

There have been times when putting things together my wife has said "you're going to wear those?...together?" but in the end even she has admitted that the combos have worked. The most striking example was going red t-shirt/red hose with Spirit of Scotland kilt, black balmoral/red torrie, black boots/belt. Sounds horrifically loud but very easy to get used to.

The easiest kilt I have that seems to go with anything is my Holyrood...really the blue jean of the tartan world IMHO. YMMV.
Rondo

[Zardoz]

I like that about the Caledonia, it works with pretty much whatever color shirts, hose, etc you got

[Joshua]

You don't always have to "match" colors - in many instances contrast is more striking than matching (a red handkerchief in a black suit pocket, for instance). However, the benefit of having so many colors in Caledonia (or Chattan, for that matter), is that it will either match, or contrast, or both!

[OC Richard]

This thread got me looking up "Caledonia" in The Setts of The Scottish Tartans (my tartan bible more or less) where, oddly enough, it is not to be found.

Then in looking through the illustrations I noticed that "Caledonia" is very nearly the same as "MacPherson" and I then read the very interesting information about the relationship between these tartans (if indeed one can think of them as individual tartans).

Under the heading MacPherson is stated:

"During the first two decades of the 19th century the Wilson firm was weaving this tartan, listing it four times up to 1819, with eleven thread counts in all. They name it 'No. 43' or 'Kidd sett' or 'Caledonia pattern' - usually all three together- but never as MacPherson. They also wove three similar patterns, one of which they called 'Caledonia'. Of these three, the one listed as 'No. 155' has recently been illustrated under the name 'Caledonia', and is known to have been worn in Edinburgh in 1822.

Early in 1822 Messrs Wilson received a large order for various named tartans, among them 'Caledonia or MacPherson 43' which clearly shows that No. 43 and MacPherson were by that date one and the same, as by implication were Caledonia and Kidd."

In any case, the tartans we call "Caledonia" and "MacPherson" have only a miniscule difference, the two fine black lines which in MacPherson are within the two narrow white lines, in Caledonia are moved outside those two narrow white lines. The inference is that the tartan we call "Caledonia" is Wilson's "No. 155" while the tartan we call "MacPherson" is Wilson's "Caledonia/Kidd/No. 43".

In any case these tartans are wonderful colourful early tartans. Now, when I choose hose I try to avoid the colours present in the kilt, which is difficult to do when the kilt has so many colours!

[Joshua]

In any case these tartans are wonderful colourful early tartans. Now, when I choose hose I try to avoid the colours present in the kilt, which is difficult to do when the kilt has so many colours!

My two favorite colors to wear with this particular tartan are burnt orange - which doesn't match anything unless it's in the weathered set, or denim blue, which matches one of the main colors. My only problem with the orange hose is that with green garters, my leg looks like a carrot, and I sincerely can't think of another color to use with the orange hose!



Oddly enough, I didn't think that earth tones would go well but I've worn olive and khaki hose with caledonia and it's turned out well also.

[Riverkilt]

Now that pleases my few drops of MacPherson blood.....