Quote Originally Posted by JRB View Post
Awesome pics, Brian. Do you know how often in period dress the tartans and colors were matched (as yours are) versus being a variety of mismatched tartans and colors? I've often heard of outfits of that era being described as a "tartan mess".
Mixing of tartans in one outfit was most common, as you can easily see in the Morier painting of Culloden. My son in this pic is wearing 4 different tartans:



(BTW, the lochaber-axe armed ghillie is displaying a common look for a clan's "commoners." Highlanders were not always averse to donning britches, all mythology aside!)

In some period images, like the MacDonald boys earlier in this thread, it might appear at first glance that one tartan is being worn, because of a common background color, but a closer look reveals different setts. (BTW, bright red tartans were a status symbol, the rich color derived from an expensive imported dyestuff called cochineal.)