why are these the 13 most popular tartans?

[MacGumerait]

Going by the frequency of surname occurance, the top 20 Scottish tartans should be:

Smith
2 Brown
3 Wilson
4 Stewart
5 Thomson
6 Campbell
7 Robertson
8 Anderson
9 Scott
10 MacDonald
11 Murray
12 Taylor
13 Clark
14 Young
15 Ross
16 Watson
17 Morrison
18 Mitchell
19 Fraser
20 Kerr

I am shocked ! Montgomery didn't make the list . ( just kidding )

[John_Carrick]

There has been a strong fashion for plain black or grey based tartans. From what I can see every kilt shop in Scotland has some sort of grey creation on a window mannequin or in their hire brochure.
Some stores seem to have their own licensed tartans that are not generally available (e.g. Slanj and McCalls).
Modern marketing and people opting for fashionable tartans (maybe they don't have or don't like their own) are factors at play alongside the traditional customer purchasing their one kilt in their own tartan.
John

[chewse]

As previously mentioned, for the retailer, it’s all about dollars and cents. The retailer’s target market, in this case, is the casual consumer of Scottish products; in particular, the kilt. The retailer’s customers are those who would buy a PV kilt on a whim (without a lot of research) and may end up wearing the kilt once or twice before donating it to Goodwill. I would go so far as to say that these same customers don’t care one way or another about the tartan but are primarily driven to any particular tartan based on its color pattern rather than the historical or clan significance.

We on this forum, however, take the tartan’s meaning and kilt more seriously and hence, have a more difficult time reconciling why a retailer would carry a limited line of tartan patterns and kilts.

[georgeetta]

dear sirs ,
apart from what's being bought ..in the name of fashion or what's trendy today . Population wise what is the top 20 order or list of Clan estimated world population by best available info ..who might buy ?
th
Dave .

[figheadair]

dear sirs ,
apart from what's being bought ..in the name of fashion or what's trendy today . Population wise what is the top 20 order or list of Clan estimated world population by best available info ..who might buy ?
th
Dave .

There'll be any number of lists but generally they follow there or there abouts this one.

[David Thorpe]

There'll be any number of lists but generally they follow there or there abouts this one.

Very interesting. Thanks for posting it.

[OC Richard]

.
Lochcarron of Scotland located in Selkirk lists the most common Tartans they weave and sell as:

1 Scotland Forever (Mod)
2 Highland Granite
3 Black Watch
4 Isle of Skye
5 MacKenzie (Mod)
6 Royal Stewart (Mod)
7 Stewart Hunting (Mod)
8 Gordon (Mod)
9 Douglas (Mod)
10 MacDonald of the Isles Htg (Anc)
11 Spirit of Scotland (Mod)
12 Stewart Black (Mod)
13 Hunter (Mod)
14 MacDonald of the Isles Htg (Mod)
15 Campbell / Black Watch (Anc)
16 Ramsay Blue (Anc)
17 Campbell of Argyll (Mod)
18 Gunn (Mod)
19 Robertson Htg. (Mod)
20 Robertson Htg. (Anc)
21 Thompson Blue
22 MacKay (Anc)
23 Campbell of Argyll (Anc)
24 MacLean of Duart (Mod)
25 Lamont (Mod)

Thanks for that list! Very interesting.

Of course my OP was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as I fully knew that it was a company selling Indian/Pakistani made tartans. (However the list I posted a link to does include numbers 3, 5, 6, and 9 from the above Lochcarron list.)

What does come to mind is that there are two (perhaps more) distinct "markets" for tartan, the 'for sale' market and the 'hire' market.

I would guess that the hire market strongly influences that Lochcarron list, because the hire shops buy tartan in vast quantities. One huge kilt hire chain could put in an order for enough tartan for several hundred kilts and that tartan would zoom up the list.

This old thread came to mind because I was just now browsing through the tartan selections at a number of leading Glasgow kilt hire shops. The tartans which crop up in nearly every shop are

Black Watch
Flower of Scotland
Spirit of Scotland
Dark Island
Highland Granite
Hebredian Heather
MacKenzie
Douglas
Royal Stuart

and most of the other tartans on that Lochcarron list show up on at least some kilt hire sites.

All of the tartans listed on the Indian/Pakistani list I gave in the OP are very common kilt hire tartans. The partial exception is Flower of Scotland, which by the way is nearly identical to Gunn. (I used to play in a pipe band that wore Flower of Scotland, and whenever we ordered new kilts some would arrive in Gunn.)

BTW many of the popular kilt hire tartans are new fashion tartans, the names of which harken back to the early Wilson lists in being somewhat corny

Silver Mist
Silver Highlander
Grey Spirit
Blue Spirit
Lomond Mist

and last but not least

Brigadoon

[neloon]

"Flower of Scotland, which by the way is nearly identical to Gunn. "
The Song was written by Roy Williamson and since the Williamsons are said to be associated with Clan Gunn the connection is explained. It may be that the design was intentional but I have also heard it said that the original was a weaving mistake for what was meant to be Gunn tartan.
Alan

[guardsman]

Perrsonally I think that the military tartans are probably the biggest sellers , such as Gordon , Black watch, Douglas, Cameron of Erracht, McKenzie, Campbell of Cawdor.Owing to family military history, or simply good looking and hard to soil tartans.After that in traditional ways , possibly hunting tartans. Just my thoughts.