New Scottish Tartans Register

[Nick Fiddes]

As many of you will already be aware, there are plans afoot in Scotland to establish a new official national register of tartans. I was nominated to represent the governors of the Scottish Tartans Authority on the Steering Group that is developing this... and I'm now also on the government Working Party charged with implementing it.

Now, lots of people keep asking me what's happening. Therefore, in a spirit of utter laziness, to avoid having to answer the same questions dozens of times, I thought I'd try to summarise where we've got to in one place. So if you're interested, you'll find it here, on my brand new blog:
http://blog.scotweb.co.uk

Any comments and feedback welcome, of course, which I'll try to feed into the process if possible.

Nick

[RockyR]

Thanks for the very public update on a VERY interesting topic.

Best of luck!

[ChromeScholar]

The only question I have is, what is this going to do to the cost of a kilt? If this will have no effect on the cost or availability of kilts, then I'm ok with it. If, on the other hand, this is a new tartan bureaucracy that causes the price of a kilt to go up for any reason, then I'm against it.

[cajunscot]

Moved thread to heraldry & tartans section. Please post all tartan-related threads here.

Thanks!

Todd

[TheKiltedWonder]

Very interesting indeed! Thanks for the link. Now I've got some bedtime reading!

[Nick Fiddes]

ChromeScholar, it should have no impact on the price of a kilt. It will only be recording tartans, and not restricting them.

Nick

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Nick,

Thanks for helping keep everyone informed through this process!
Matt

[Rex_Tremende]

I have two questions, unrelated to each other:

1. If the registry is available to the public for free (per the blog), what benefit is there for STA membership? As I understand it (I am not a member) currently a membership gets you access to information that the public does not have, such as thread count and designer/history information.

2. In looking for potential generic tartans some time back, I found a number of "fashion" tartans by a Canadian mill that I don't recall seeing at STA. Will the new national registry include these type of tartans?

Thanks for bringing the process to our attention. It sounds like an interesting project.

Regards,
Rex.

[ChromeScholar]

It will only be recording tartans, and not restricting them.

Then I'm all for it!

[Phil]

I visited the blog and was actually quite impressed by the one on the Edinburgh Hogmanay. What the guy says is quite right. Why should the taxpayers have to pay money to get into our own city? I haven't bothered for a number of years now, mainly on principle, but my recollection was of aimless souls wandering about with nothing to do until the bells when a few bands struck up for the benefit of th TV cameras.
Back on subject good luck with the tartan register, I will follow with interest.