Tartan review: V&A Dundee explores tartan’s history and significance

Interesting new exhibition brings together more than 300 tartan objects

Cheddar Gorgeous modelling a tartan suit by Liquorice Black
Cheddar Gorgeous modelling a tartan suit by Liquorice Black
(Image credit: V&A Dundee)

Tartan may well be “the most categorised textile on Earth”, said Cal Revely-Calder in The Daily Telegraph. There are more than 11,000 recognised varieties of this grid of “geometric patterns of coloured thread”, each one of them loaded with symbolism. Over the centuries, tartan has been “a source of pride, contempt, sedition, comfort, embarrassment and cool”. To wear it “is to enter a miasma of folklore and social rules”. Yet among the many things that this new exhibition demonstrates is that most of these rules are relatively recent inventions. This show at the V&A in Dundee brings together more than 300 objects to explore tartan’s history and significance, covering everything from Culloden to the Bay City Rollers. In its sweep, it encompasses a “dizzying” but never disorienting mix of art, design and fashion. At its heart, Tartan investigates national pride, “and why we bind ourselves to our history”. And it is “mesmerising”.

Nevertheless, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here, said Duncan Macmillan in The Scotsman. Modern tartan originated with Highlanders, who wore checked cloth, not according to any rules, but “exactly how they liked” – until Culloden, after which it was banned and so became a “symbol of rebellion”. (One of the best things here is a 1785 plaid wedding dress worn in defiance of the ban.) Highlanders in the British Army were exempted, however, and cartoons from Paris after Waterloo show that what they wore under their kilts was already “a matter of pointed curiosity for the ladies”. Later on, the story of tartan gives way to many “wacky and weird” exhibits: Marcel Duchamp’s tartan codpieces, Alexander McQueen’s “Highland Rape” fashion collection. It is rather disappointing, though, that in this show about “the definitive costume of the Gaels”, the information panels contain “not a single word of Gaelic”.

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V&A Dundee, Riverside Esplanade, Dundee (01382-411611, vam.ac.uk/dundee). Until 14 January 2024