Colors in Tartans

[rlloyd]

Like others have said, it was because of the dye availability. In a world before synthetic dyes, certain colors were much harder to come by. As an example, this is why even still today we associate the color purple with royalty...because the purple dye used throughout most of history was very expensive. Beyond that, the choice of color patterns and such would have in most, if not all, cases have been purely aesthetic. As another poster mentioned, specific tartans weren't associated with certain clans until round about 200 years ago...up until then, the weaver of a particular length of cloth would have just taken what colors they could get their hands on and designed a pattern that appealed to them.