Why punks wear tartan

Home Style. John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols attends court in wearing a bold tartan suit, clashing tie and shearling overcoat.

Origins Tartan is defined by a combination of factors. Who Wore It Well? Ways to Wear From left to right: Jonathan Edwards wears an Edward Sexton suit in Black Watch tartan with peaked lapels and heavily roped shoulders over a white pin collar shirt and knitted tie, a more formal take on tartan photograph by Jamie Ferguson. The Cardigan: Knitwear's Unsung Hero. It was in this collection that Naomi Campbell, wearing a royal blue velvet jacket, tartan kilt, tam-o'-shanter and slippery cream rubber stockings, fell from her inch, super-elevated, blue 'mock croc' platforms.

Tartan in Vivienne's collections has a strong and consistent presence. It could be said, that tartan is her signature material. It is not necessary to put them all up, but there are a few:. Tartan trend has never been completely out, if you look at the past years collections. It became a Fall must, as military, leather or black. Of course, it gets through transformations and experiments, but having at least one tartan or plaid piece in a wardrobe is a must.

I personally own a vintage tartan skirt that belonged to my grandmother. Over 50 years it stays as current as it was in the early 70s. Next season, we will see a renovated tartan with a mix of classics: some designers stick to the original print, but the majority transformed it into checks and crossed lines to make it more futuristic.

When in comes to the cultural influences, the preppy side of tartan gets exposed: pay attention to 60s inspired pieces in bright colours. In the breast-exposing, tartan-trimmed jackets and figure-hugging tartan bodices topped with 'decimated' lace, McQueen's tailoring expressed the barbarism meted out to the fragile Highland way of life and its ecology," fashion scholar Jonathan Faiers wrote in his text for the McQueen retrospective at the Met museum.

Image via blog. It featured mini-kilts, layered tartan draping, and Kate Moss in a voluminous gown fashioned from Vivienne Westwood's custom made McAndreas tartan, named after her husband and co-designer, Andreas Kronthaler. Westwood's take, at the same time, is very far from soulless appropriation. She has a rich history with the material, using it throughout the rise of punk in 70s. She could be seen herself in a mix of bondage gear and tartan suits, just like the one she made Johnny, and the one she didn't make for Theresa May.

Where Viv led everyone else followed. And Tartan's subcultural place owes a lot to her pioneering. From 70s punks to 90s grungers, tartan has helped channel the anger of the lost youth. Tartan has a slight conservative aura of authority, national heritage, and idyllic countryside about it — so it's fun to rip it to shreds.

The Jacobite Uprisings and their ultimate failure in a final defeat at Culloden on 16 April have become the stuff of romantic tales, most recently in Outlander, whose second part of the first season premiered last weekend. What followed, however, was far from romantic. As part of a brutal crackdown on Jacobites and their sympathizers, and in order to finally crush Highland culture, British parliament banned the wearing of Highland dress and tartan in the Dress Act.

And yet, stories of people defying the ban abound. Then there was the ambiguous portrait of John Campbell, who, as cashier of the Royal Bank of Scotland, worked for the government, yet wears a tartan kilt and jacket. Perhaps most famously, Flora MacDonald, who helped Charles Edward Stuart escape after Culloden and was jailed in the Tower of London for her efforts, appears in a portrait painted after her release, with a tartan plaid shawl over her shoulders.