The Declaration Tartan

[OC Richard]

I rather like the new tartan from an aesthetic standpoint. Looking forward to seeing a kilt made up in it.



It's tough to take something else, such as a flag, and turn it into pleasing woven fabric. Combining two flags is harder yet, but somehow it all works for me.

My only quibble is that of 'scale', the very fine lines which give those portions an un-tartan-like look. One sees it in fashion plaid fabric all the time, fine lines giving the illusion of the edges being blurred, like this



Traditional tartans always seem to have a certain consistency of scale.

It does take the symbolism thing (which was originally not a part of tartan design) to new absurd heights. Even the number of threads have symbolism? What if it's woven in a bigger or smaller sett? And "mythical unicorn"? Oh dear.

Yes I see that Nova Scotia uses the same elements, yet the two tartans look quite different to me.

Oddly, just today I was looking at various renderings of the Nova Scotia tartan and noticing that in some the red line is very fine, so that from a distance the tartan looks mostly blue & gold, but on others the red line is thick making the tartan look blue & orange.

BTW I notice on the two examples of Nova Scotia shown above one has the red line centered, the other offcenter.