true tartan hose (not diced+lines)

[OC Richard]

We're all familiar with "tartan" hose. I've owned a few pairs over the years. They show up often in The Highlanders of Scotland.

As we know, they don't actually match the tartan, unless the tartan is a very simple one such as Wallace.

Because the "tartan" hose aren't really tartan, but are diced hose with an added single line in each band of colour, done in colours to suggest the tartan of the kilt.

Here they are, in the 1860s:



Nowadays the hosemakers will "split" the diamonds in order to introduce more of the various colours in complex tartans. Here are mine:



But still the pattern is diced with added single lines.

But here in The Highlanders of Scotland are hose knit in such a way as to more closely follow the tartan:



Note, on the figure on the left, the addition of black bands on the hose to mimick the tartan more closely than modern diced+lines "tartan" hose would. (Nowadays the hosemaker would probably split the blue diamonds with black to suggest the effect.)

So it was quite interesting when these vintage hose came up on Ebay the other day. Yes there are the familiar split diamonds but also double lines and triple lines:



Which makes me wonder: does anyone knit hose of this complexity nowadays?

BTW I looked through a handful of vintage Highland Dress catalogues from the 1920s through 1950s and all the "tartan" hose they show are the familiar diced+single lines type.