Click the tartan to view its entry in The Scottish Registers of Tartans which includes registration details, restrictions, and registrant information.
Unregistered tartans may link to one of the web's online design environments for similar information.
For any questions about reproduction of designs or weaving of these tartans, please contact the registrant directly or via this website.
Fashion Day
"Every fabric that you look at in England has a charge of content."
~ Vivienne Westwood, 1993
Indeed, all textiles are woven with more than thread—they embody their origins, history, craftsmanship, and symbolism. Yet few have enjoyed the remarkable journey of tartan. Emerging from its Highland roots, tartan became a fashionable fabric during the Regency period, reached new heights of popularity throughout the Victorian era, and has continued to inspire designers in every generation since. Whether appearing in elegant nineteenth-century gowns, the couture of the twentieth century, or contemporary runway collections, tartan has repeatedly reinvented itself while retaining its rich heritage.
No modern designer embraced tartan quite like Vivienne Westwood. Throughout her career she transformed traditional Scottish tartans into spectacular works of fashion, combining historic fabrics with dramatic tailoring, sweeping skirts, elegant corsetry, and a touch of theatrical flair. Her designs celebrated the beauty of tartan while demonstrating just how versatile it could be.
The 1990s marked a particularly memorable revival for tartan on the international runway. Vivienne Westwood's celebrated Autumn/Winter 1993 "Anglomania" collection featured some of the most iconic tartan gowns ever created, including the magnificent dress worn by Kate Moss that remains one of fashion's most recognizable images. At the same time, Alexander McQueen explored Scotland's history through bold and thought-provoking tartan collections, while Burberry continued to refine its famous check as a symbol of classic British elegance. Designers including Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galliano, Comme des Garçons, and Ralph Lauren also embraced tartan, each interpreting the centuries-old cloth in their own distinctive way.
Although Vivienne Westwood passed away in 2022, her fashion house continues under the creative direction of Andreas Kronthaler, ensuring that the iconic MacAndreas tartan and her distinctive vision remain an enduring part of contemporary fashion.💗 💙 💛 🤍 🖤 👗 👗 👗
Few designers have transformed traditional textiles quite as dramatically as Vivienne Westwood. Throughout a career spanning more than five decades, she challenged conventional ideas of fashion by combining British history with rebellion, craftsmanship, and theatrical flair. While she worked with an astonishing range of fabrics—from luxurious silks and velvets to Harris Tweed, denim, leather, and lace—it was tartan that became one of her most recognizable signatures.
In Westwood's hands, a cloth once associated with Highland clans and tradition was reinvented again and again as a bold symbol of individuality, creativity, and defiance.
Westwood first embraced tartan during the punk movement of the 1970s, when she and Malcolm McLaren used it in provocative designs that deliberately challenged the fashion establishment. Rather than treating tartan as a formal or nostalgic fabric, she slashed it, draped it, layered it, and combined it with unexpected materials to create garments that were rebellious yet unmistakably British. As her work evolved, tartan remained a constant thread, appearing in collections inspired by everything from eighteenth-century tailoring to Victorian dress, Scottish heritage, and haute couture.
Her distinctive style was instantly recognizable. Corsets worn as outerwear, exaggerated silhouettes, asymmetrical cuts, historic tailoring, towering platform shoes, richly patterned textiles, and playful references to Britain's past became hallmarks of the Vivienne Westwood aesthetic. She delighted in taking traditional forms and turning them upside down, creating garments that felt both historical and surprisingly modern. Her collections demonstrated that fashion could be intellectual, political, humorous, and beautifully crafted all at once.
By the 1990s, Westwood had firmly established tartan as a staple of high fashion. Her dramatic evening gowns, impeccably tailored suits, and sculptural dresses proved that tartan could be every bit as elegant as silk brocade or velvet. In doing so, she helped free the fabric from its purely regional associations and inspired countless designers to embrace tartan as a timeless fashion textile. Today, her influence can still be seen on runways around the world, where tartan continues to be reinterpreted in fresh and unexpected ways.
Click the ballgown to see the runway show for which this look was the finale.