"New" Clan MacTavish Dress Tartan

[figheadair]

I've never been a fan of the white-based dress/airsaid/dance tartans. The red MacTavish tartan is quite striking though, and the blue Thompson tartan is very lovely as a dress tartan, and the brown hunting MacTavish is handsome as well. I can't say the same for this new dancer's tartan however.

Arisaid and dress tartans are similar but not the same. The latter have their origins in the former but true arisaid setts have their origins in domestic blanket setts and allegedly women's wear. They were not white versions of clan tartans, which of course didn't exist in the C18th, but something completely different as can be seen from the examples in Figs 8 and 9 here. The exception to this difference is possibly what is now called Dress MacPherson which may originally actually have been a blanket pattern.

N
Now I maybe wrong here Jock, but I was under the impression that "dress" tartans came about from Queen Victoria, that a red based tartans was improper for a lady to wear. So the predominantly red was changed to be more white "dress Stewart" was born and other clans followed suite. I also think that the designation of a dress tartan with the dominant white in it makes sense in most people's heads because as an everyday tartan to wear it would show and get dirty more readily. So dress may be a formal wear tartan that was created by a woman
David

Dress setts were not invented by Queen Victoria but did come about during her early reign and seem to have been the invention of the Sobieski Stuarts although they did not use the term 'dress'. They included a white version of the (Royal) Stuart which they called 'Victoria', presumably to curry favour with the establishment that they aspired to join.