Why don't more people wear old non-clan tartans?

[BobsYourUncle]

I would say it is a combination of those factors, Peter. Even for those who know about them, the fact that they are not stock supported by the mills means they are going to be a bit more difficult for the average person to obtain. Even though having a tartan custom woven for you doesn't have to be as expensive as many people perceive it to be, it does require a bit of extra cost and effort. And in my experience, few people are going to go the extra mile of having a tartan custom woven simply because they like the design. For the most part, if they are going to the trouble of ordering something custom, it is going to be a tartan that has personal significance to them (i.e. a clan or family tartan, or something else for which they have a connection).

I mean, I went through the effort of recreating the tartan worn in this 1859 painting, "Sheep Washing in Glen Lyon."


(The colors turned out a bit lighter in the cloth than they appear in the painting, but I'm happy with the way it looks nonetheless).

I'm a "tartan geek" though, and I think things like this are pretty cool. :-) I recognize the fact that I'm in a minority. Plus I'm in the business. I get my cloth at wholesale pricing and I make my own kilts. Which means it can be relatively easy for me to follow a wild hair and do something like this. If I was paying regular retail pricing for a custom weave of tartan, plus paying a kilt maker to tailor the kilt for me, I certainly wouldn't own as many kilts as I do and I sincerely doubt I'd own this one!

So yes, I think it is partly just people not knowing about the existence of these tartans, but more than that I believe it is the unavailability and the cost, coupled with the fact that people will always give precedence to tartans that "mean something" to them.

Matt has an article on Pre-Culloden Tartans (without pictures, alas!):

http://albanach.org/oldtartans.html

I myself have a kilt in the so-called Ulster tartan, ca. 1600....

@Matt Newsome: So we have been discussing this modest winter project, compiling a list and illustrations, and presumably thread counts/sett counts by which each pre-Culloden tartan could be woven...I smell a grant application coming on...

[figheadair]

@Matt Newsome: So we have been discussing this modest winter project, compiling a list and illustrations, and presumably thread counts/sett counts by which each pre-Culloden tartan could be woven...I smell a grant application coming on...

Wouldn't it be nice if the Scottish Executive (government), the National Museum or the like actually made some money available to preserve the nation's heritage. They've not been particularly interested to date so it would be a welcome departure. I don't count the Tartan Register which frankly is a bit of politicing rubbish that has no expertise or interest in preserving historical information but that's for a different thread.

I originally identified pre-Repeal setts as opposed to pre-Culloden ones because there are a number of traditional type patterns for which the first known example date to c1750-60 but which are true rural type patterns as opposed to the early commercial patterns of Wilsons of Bannockburn that began to appear during the late 1770s.

The principal source of such a project should be extant samples. Some portraits are painted with extraordinary accuracy, others less so and so accuracy is not always possible.