Scottish Clothing : Scotland Magazine

Everything you need to know about...Tartan

This issue, Roddy Martine reveals the history of tartan

What is so particularly extraordinary about tartan is that it is historically unique to Scotland. Nobody else seems to have come up with the idea. That said, the sight of Mel Gibson portraying a tartan clad Sir William Wallace in his Hollywood film Braveheart was sheer inventive nonsense. As a 13th...

By Roddy Martine from Issue 30 published on 01/12/2006

Everything you need to know about...wearing the kilt

In the first of a new series, Roddy Martine reveals how to look good in a kilt

The original form of Highland dress was a simple blanket, otherwise known as a plaid. A belt was placed on the ground and the plaid laid on top and folded lengthwise into pleats. The wearer would then stretch out on top of the plaid parallel to the pleats, fasten the belt, and fold the material arou...

By Roddy Martine from Issue 29 published on 25/10/2006

Behind the kilt

OR EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE KILT … BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK, BY VIVIEN DEVLIN

Traditional Scottish dress has enjoyed a dramatic and colourful history, from its origins as the Highlanders’ home-spun garments to clan battledress, reinvented by the Victorian aristocracy and finally evolving into fashionable menswear today. The past 20 years have witnessed an extraordinary boom ...

By Vivien Devlin from Issue 6 published on 6/2/2003

The Golden Fleece

GERALDINE COATES ON THE REBIRTH OF QUALITY SCOTTISH KNITWEAR AS A CATWALK HIT

Fine woollens and ‘Made in Scotland’ have long been associated in the mind of the connoisseur consumer as partners in quality. After all, the knitwear industry was invented in the Borders of Scotland when the first specialised techniques for knitting and weaving fine yarns like cashmere were develop...

By Geraldine Coates from Issue 5 published on 4/11/2002

The Right Stuff

Thanks to a changeable climate, scotland has long been a world leader in the business of producing clothing fit for any weather, as geraldine coates explains

To say it sometimes rains in Scotland is the understatement of all time. Even in the height of summer one sometimes experiences all four seasons in one day, often in one hour. That’s why visitors and residents alike know that when it comes to any outdoor pursuits – walking, fishing, shooting, riding...

By Geraldine Coates from Issue 4 published on 9/9/2002

Harris Tweed looming large

Elizabeth Walton pays a visit to the outer Hebrides to see the home off Harris Tweed, an icon that rigidly sticks with traditional values

Harris Tweed is a powerful symbol of the remote Outer Hebrides where it is woven. An explosion of colour in every design reflects the landscape’s luminous beauty, and the million metres of cloth woven by hand each year is as adaptable as the island inhabitants. The tweed story began in 1868 when La...

By Elizabeth Walton from Issue 3 published on 5/7/2002

Material girl

Belinda Robertson, feisty Glasgow girl, has taken cashmere to a new plane of fashion

Cast your mind back – not very far – to when there were just four types of sweater: polo neck, turtle neck, round neck and V neck. Nothing else varied much, except that sometimes people bravely wore a matching cardigan over the top, and then the ensemble was called a twinset. It was probably knitted...

By Kate Patrick from Issue 2 published on 5/6/2002