distinction between dress plaid and hunting plaid

[figheadair]

John is correct about the mid-late Victorian origin for the differentiation and the reasons why.

A description of nobleman's dress in the 1600s would depend on a number of things not least which end of the century you are talking about. At the beginning it would have been more mediaeval but by the late C17th you'd have found something more like the dress that we associate with Culloden era Highlanders. Look at the first and last posts here for an example of a Highland chief's clothing.

Prior to that era (and prior to the 1747 Act of Proscription which banned the wear of tartan), folk wore whatever was available.

John, that's not quite correct. It's an interesting distinction and an assumption often made but the Act banned the kilt, plaid, and Highland clothes but not actually tartan.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

You might find this articles of mine about tartan terminology helpful in answering your questions about "dress" and "hunting" etc.

http://scottishtartans.org/downloads...eet_colors.pdf

http://www.albanach.org/terminology.html

[Arrowyn]

Thanks!

[OC Richard]

Nice articles there Matt.

It gets confusing because, as I understand it, originally "dress" tartans were tartans with large white areas intended strictly for female wear.

But for some reason in the Victorian period people started thinking of tartans as being more suited to one male pursuit or another, "hunting" for outdoor wear and "dress" for evening wear.

If they had chosen the term "evening tartan" rather than "dress tartan" things wouldn't have got all mixed up, but sadly they did not, and nowadays many men think that the "dress tartans" with large white areas are for male Evening Dress. (I cringe every time I see a man wearing one of these.)

Remember that prior to the 19th century tartans were not systematised in any way, except in the kilted regiments of the British army. To get a sense of 18th century dress the best thing to do is to look at all the surviving portaits and read all the surviving mentions of dress which crop up in various writings. There's not very much material, it makes for a fairly quick read. The only mentioning of distinctions in tartan design, as I recall, are the references to the female arisaid tartans with the white stripes, and a single passage saying that you could guess the place of a man's residence by the design of his tartan.

As to what a nobleman might wear in the 17th century we have only this one portrait, from 1660



and the next-oldest is from 1700

[Arrowyn]

I'm not sure if this should be in a new thread or not, but there was the mention of chieftain verses Laird. I was under the impression that the chieftain and laird would not necessarily attend the same functions, that they were more of a political alliance (if that's even the right way to phrase it) within the clan.

I'm finishing up the final details of my novel, and I have a wedding at the end. I'm trying to decide what my hero would wear to his own wedding, as well as the woman's father. So far I do not have the clan chieftain in this scene, although there is the mention of clan members present....

thanks.

[sailortats]

This portrait from the 1700s would seem to bear out what was said in another recent thread, the one with the cartoons of men in kilts, that kilts were shorter in those days. His kilt appears to be well above the knees but I note too, that his hose seem to go all the way up to the bottom of the knees.

[EagleJCS]

John, that's not quite correct. It's an interesting distinction and an assumption often made but the Act banned the kilt, plaid, and Highland clothes but not actually tartan.

Thanks for the clarification.