District and royal tartan oddities

[creagdhubh]

Balmoral tartan, or variations described as "Balmoral tartan 100% wool" are available by the metre on Ebay UK right now.

Type it in the search box and have a shuftie.

This, John?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CHESS-DESIGN...item25817bcb9c

They look like fashion tartans to me, but I could be wrong. They're certainly not the restricted Balmoral tartan (see below). "Variations described as..." is quite right indeed!



Cheers,

[English Bloke]

I agree they are not THE Balmoral. But without question they are still calling it "Balmoral".

Shouldn't we be phoning the trading standards office?

[creagdhubh]

I agree they are not THE Balmoral. But without question they are still calling it "Balmoral".

Shouldn't we be phoning the trading standards office?

Hahaha! Perhaps, we should!

[English Bloke]

Thanks for the picture Kyle. You gotta admit, it's a bit gorgeous. I can understand why they are so protective of it...

[The Wizard of BC]

There is another anomaly to this Earl of St. Andrews Tartan that no one else has pointed out.

The listing in the Scottish Tartans Authority for "Earl of St. Andrews" is completely different.

http://www.tartansauthority.com/tart...ndrews-fashion

Notice that it is listed as a fashion Tartan. That its date is "prior to 2002", and the designer listed as D.C Dalgliesh.

The statement giving details on the Tartan says
"Another D C Dalgleish 'special' with a passing resemblance to the original tartan."

Strangly there is no other listing for "Earl of St. Andrews" other than a dress version. No indication of what "the original tartan" is or was.

And from the thread count the colors of this listed Tartan are different than the one listed with the Scottish Register. The dark blue is replaced by green.

Curiouser and curiouser.

[creagdhubh]

Thanks for the picture Kyle. You gotta admit, it's a bit gorgeous. I can understand why they are so protective of it...

Oh, I certainly agree! It is an extremely gorgeous tartan, in my opinion. Prince Albert had a good eye for aesthetics.

[RockyR]

There is another anomaly to this Earl of St. Andrews Tartan that no one else has pointed out.

The listing in the Scottish Tartans Authority for "Earl of St. Andrews" is completely different.

http://www.tartansauthority.com/tart...ndrews-fashion

Notice that it is listed as a fashion Tartan. That its date is "prior to 2002", and the designer listed as D.C Dalgliesh.

The statement giving details on the Tartan says
"Another D C Dalgleish 'special' with a passing resemblance to the original tartan."

Strangly there is no other listing for "Earl of St. Andrews" other than a dress version. No indication of what "the original tartan" is or was.

And from the thread count the colors of this listed Tartan are different than the one listed with the Scottish Register. The dark blue is replaced by green.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Steve.. search the STA on the word "andrews" and 2 pages pop up, including the regular "St. Andrews, Earl of". Their search function is VERy weak on the STA site:

http://www.tartansauthority.com/tart...=andrews#pages

I PERSONALLY find the STA's site difficult to search for US military tartans. You must put the periods after the letters u and s for things to pop up:

http://www.tartansauthority.com/tart...?src=1&key=u.s.

[Steve Ashton]

Yea, I know Rocky. I was just pointing out the anomaly. If you search under "Earl of St. Andrews" you end up looking at some fashion Tartan.

So, if someone did not also search under "St. Andrews, Earl of" they would not know about the original.

[OC Richard]

The claim that district tartans are somehow older than clan tartans is often repeated. The only support for that opinion would seem to be a single quote from Martin Martin in 1703 that taken on its own is rather ambiguous. It states that ever island differs in the breadth and color of stripes of the "plads" which they make.

We should keep the distinction clear between the notion of regional tartan design and our modern named "district tartans".

I think all Martin is saying is that each region has certain tendencies or tastes regarding their basic approach to colour choices and design structure. This is entirely different from the idea of fixed named designs which in all probability didn't exist at that time.

The exact parallel is our Native American arts such as blanket weaving and pottery. Each pot and blanket is unique, yet at the same time follows certain stylistic tendencies which enable it to be identified as the work of a certain tribe. It is my firm belief that Highland "plads" were precisely like this: each web of cloth unique yet following stylistic tendencies which allowed an knowledgeable viewer to guess its origin. Since the various tribes (clans) inhabited specific tribal lands the place of origin could be guessed.

Think of the old western film where an arrow strikes the side of the wagon near John Wayne's head and he glances at the arrow and says "hmmm... Comanche!"

The same is true of traditional folk arts the world over.

BTW the same modern approach of embalming a previously improvised art form into a rigid established unchanging regulated form has had its effect on Scottish piping, specifically piobaireachd.

It's clear that piobaireachd was originally a number of improvised variations on an existing song-tune (the exact parallel being traditional jazz) but now various old versions which happened to be written down must be slavishly followed.