Origin and Use of "Dress" Tartans

[Dixiecat]

Thank you Matt for bringing a little sense into this discussion. I would never deny that these days the idea of 'dress' tartans have gone a little wild. Who ever thought that the Menzies tartan would be recreated as 'Special Dress Cerise Menzies' for instance.

Since men are now considering their own dance as something beneath them (and there have been a few on this forum who have looked down on dancers) the women are taking over and the mills are now catering for them. Those new tartans with such colours as turquoise, cerise, raspberry, fushia, lavender, etc. are being introduced to entice the new dancers. The young and the 'hip' and the female. That's one side of the coin of white background dress tartans. I would consider that as the 'highland dance fashion tartan'. However, there are plenty of other dress tartans that have NOT been designed for this market and are more than suitable for men to wear. For both dancing AND formal dress wear. I was a little upset to have davidlpope lump every white dress tartan into one category and categorically say that every one of them was for women and seemingly belittle not only the tartans, but the people who wear them.

What seems to be forgotten is that most of the modern tartans got their start the very same way that the new dance tartans have. That is, as something pulled out of the air by the mill and called McSomething or other. Some of you wear the XMarks tartan and proudly so, but how is the creation of that tartan any different from the new dance tartans? Both were created for a MARKET. To look down on dance tartans is to belittle most of the tartans that you gentlemen now wear.