Highland dress is the traditional, regional dress of the Highlands and Isles of Scotland. It is often characterised by tartan. Specific designs of shirt, jacket, bodice and headwear may also be worn along with clan badges and other devices indicating family and heritage.
King Edward VII in a tweed Argyll jacket, kilt and Glengarry bonnet (1904)
James Carnegie, 3rd Duke of Fife, in a plain-cuff Crail jacket (1984)
Black-tie Highland dress with kilt (in Campbell of Argyll tartan) and Prince Charlie jacket (2021)
Highlanders wearing kilts, plaids, bonnets, and an early example of trews; 1631 German engraving.
Tartan is a patterned cloth with crossing horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours, forming simple or complex rectangular patterns. Tartans originated in woven wool, but are now made in other materials. Tartan is particularly associated with Scotland, and Scottish kilts almost always have tartan patterns.
Three tartans; the left and right are made with the "modern" dye palette; the middle is made with "muted" colours.
1970s Missoni tartan knit jumper (sweater) and skirt set
Visualisation of 2/2 twill weave: the black weft threads go two over then two under the orange warp threads, staggered by one thread each pass (resulting in a diagonal pattern). In the actual cloth, the white gaps would be closed.
Close-up view of traditional tartan cloth, showing pattern of diagonal "ribs" of colour; this is a five-colour tartan, in scarlet red, black, yellow, azure blue, and crimson red.
