"Garish" Tartans

[Vegan Scot]

How does this one grab you?



Regards,
Rex.

Looks great Rex! I love how the orange warms the blue and the blue cools the orange. Soothing and eye-catching at the same moment.

[OC Richard]

Fortunately many of the ugliest tartans are bogus 19th century creations and can well be avoided on both historical and aesthetic grounds.

There are the ugly yellow creations of the Hay-Allan brothers, created as part of an elaborate faux-ancient manuscript hoax:





Then there's Buchanan, the result of a sloppy erroneous rendering in an 1843 book.

The real Buchanan tartan, as it appeared in 1831, is a normal symmetrical tartan:



But a slapdash 1843 illustration messed up the design, making it appear asymmetrical, which the weavers slavishly copied:



Due perhaps both to its garish colours and its strikingly asymmetrical design, this tartan lends itself to garish costumes:





though the yellow Hay-Allan tartans are not immune:



Here are some authentic 18th century tartans with bright hues, far superior in design to the Hay-Allan efforts:

[OC Richard]

In contrast to the bright hues of many 18th century tartans, recent "fashion" tartan design tends to be rather muted:

[HeathBar]

Fortunately many of the ugliest tartans are bogus 19th century creations and can well be avoided on both historical and aesthetic grounds.

There are the ugly yellow creations of the Hay-Allan brothers, created as part of an elaborate faux-ancient manuscript hoax:

As far as I know, the Barclay dress tartan was not designed by the brothers. If you look at the copy of the 1842 book that Matt now has online, you will see that it shows the hunting colors, though it was not known as hunting then. If you have proof that the brothers did design the dress colors for the Barclay tartan, please share that with me as I would be very interested in that information.