Exploring Total Border

[figheadair]

That's so cool! All this technical weaving stuff is way over my head.

But the "total border" is what I suppose I'm seeing in paintings like this.

Coming from a costuming background, where you study images and try to duplicate the look (while often not understanding how the original was made, nor caring) I would have simply bound the raw edges with a narrow bit of cloth tape.

It was Peter who explained that the border was woven in.

As a costumer I would have bound the edges in false analogy with the tops of military kilts. Besides, for a film or play the costumer probably wouldn't have the knowledge, time, budget, or means to get dozens of plaids woven with the all-around border.

As part of my reconstruction of the tartan in the Grants portraits I spent a long time studying the detail. Some have argued that the band at the edges was some sort of binding (like that baize on the waistband of a military kilt) but that makes absolutely no sense.

Champion-1.jpg Piper-1.jpg

A selvedge, by its very nature, is woven in and so won't fray and using a difference material would have affected the drape and movement of the cloth. I have long believed that these bands were the artist's impression of a selvedge mark and this seems to be supported by what I believe to have been the source/proto-version of these portraits in which the pattern is more regular and a selvedge mark is identifiable.

Portrait of a Highlander, Richard Waitt (NSC_IMAG_INVMG_1966_001P-001).jpg