Harris Tweed Tartans

[Nick Fiddes]

Hi Matt - I admit it was my best guess. Should probably have checked at the time... But bear in mind that it's not beneath the big tartan weavers to add in, or leave out, the odd line here or there basically because they think it looks better that way. Sacrilege perhaps. But also true.

And arguably in any case it's perhaps a bit of a modern affectation that we try to be so punctilious about such things, when the true history was rather less exact. I read once that that Shakespeare spelled his own name 171 different ways... ;-)

[Nick Fiddes]

There is record of a housewife who, in 1572, gave coloured wool to a weaver to make into her tartan. When the weaver made the tartan according to his own design and not according to hers, she sued him before a magistrate and won. The weaver was punished.

Indeed. Do the records record how substantial the difference was?

Of course if you buy a cow and are sent a goat then that is unequivocally breach of contract. But creative design deals more in difference in degree than in kind. I'm not claiming I'm 100% certain in my identification, and may yet be proven wrong. But I'd humbly suggest there is oodles of historical precedent, which continues to this day, of tartan setts as well as shades being fairly loosely interpreted. Matt? Care to comment?

Perhaps this debate deserves its own thread.