A Checkered Past

Why tartan was banned in 1746, and nine other things you never knew about plaid

By: Mai Nguyen

Tartan (or plaid in North American speak) is instantly recognizable by its mesmerizing, layered lines. We know it as the swatch of choice for schoolgirls and suburban dads, but long before that it was (and still is) a symbol of all things Scottish. Tartan has transcended tradition, going from a humble cloth of the Scottish Highlands to a timeless print with far-reaching appeal and a place in nearly every Canadian’s closet.

Back to school bonus point: there were fifty-three different kinds of plaid used in Clueless. See how many you can count on Cher in one of our favorite WORN supercuts here.

1 // Crisscrossing Languages
Tartan’s linguistic roots come from more than one language. Tiretaine (French) and tiritana (Spanish) both mean a blend of linen and wool. It’s also rooted in the Gaelic word breacan, which means plaid, speckled, or checkered.

2 // Strength in Number (of Fabrics)
Tartan is traditionally made out of two fibers – linen and wool. When woven with warp and weft, this binary composition gives tartan its supreme resistance. This material also goes by (fun word alert) “linsey-woolsey.”

3 // We are Family
Among Scottish clans, the lines of tartan run deeper than wool. Members of a family would wear a specific pattern to show others who their allegiance was to. The pattern could appear on a traditional Highland dress, a kilt, or a scarf. Consider it the classier answer to wearing an “I’m with them” shirt.

4 // Rebel Rebel
Thanks to Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Scottish clansmen, tartan was banned in 1746 after they unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow the British throne. Under the Act of Proscription, authorities believed tartan was an uncontrollable force of rebellion. Luckily for Scots and the fashion world alike, tartan returned from exile in 1782.

5 // Highland High
Ever wonder why tartan is ubiquitous on school uniforms? It goes back to 1851, when Queen Victoria brought her fashionable sons to the opening of the Great Exhibition. Her boys were clad in full Highland dress and it caused a sensation of Bieber proportions. Ever since, tartan has become a staple for private school dress.

6 // Slash and Burn
The British had it right. Tartan is a rebel. In the late ’70s, it became a staple among punks, thanks (in large part) to Vivienne Westwood. She and Malcolm McLaren of the Sex Pistols launched a London boutique called Seditionaries, specializing in punk clothes that defied the status quo. And it sure did. Westwood took scissors, chains, safety pins, and bin liners to the Scot’s swatch, turning tradition on its head.

7 // Springsteen Approves
Tartan is the unofficial fabric of American blue-collar worker. Paired with jeans, it has become synonymous with the hard working American. It became popular in the ’50s and ’60s after the manufacturing company Pendleton introduced the world to the plaid shirt, now a staple at stores like Mark’s Work Warehouse.

8 // Beauty is Only Skin Deep…
Designers the world over are intrigued by the criss-crossing lines – Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, and Jean-Paul Gaultier have all tackled tartan, as have Japanese designers Rei Kawakubo and Jun Takahashi. The latter once had his models painted plaid from head to toe for a runway show.

9 // Cunningham Reports:
Following September 11, fashion photographer Bill Cunningham saw a surge in tartan among New Yorkers. He wrote in The New York Times: “Scottish tartans, plaid, checks, and tattersalls are a sign of fashion’s change of mood since September 11, a time when exaggerated silhouettes and theatrical flourishes have seemed out of touch. Many women reached into their closets for the toned-down style of plaids, which suggest the security of tradition.”

10 // Check Your Checks
It’s getting hard to keep up with the endless variations of tartan, so in 2008 the Scottish Parliament established the Register of Tartans, an online database that tracks every tartan ever registered. Just about everything has a tartan, from provinces (all but Nunavut have one) to organizations (Canadian Dental Association), from royalty (Princess Diana) to cute felines (Hello Kitty).

further reading // Tartan by Jonathan Faiers

illustration // Andrea Manica

9 Things About: Hattie Carnegie

By: wornette

Every time I hear the name “Carnegie,” the famous hall in New York City comes to mind. Andrew Carnegie was like the Paul McCartney of the steel industry, dominating it in the late 19th century in North America, tattooing his name on many decadent buildings, schools, and libraries. Shamefully, when I first heard of Hattie Carnegie I automatically assumed she must have been related to him, since everything else famous with that name seemed to be.

Off to Google I went, anticipating that Hattie was a fancy heiress gone fashion designer à la Stella McCartney, only to be proven I had it all wrong. Hattie Carnegie wasn’t related to Andrew Carnegie; in fact, not only was that not her real name, but she wasn’t even American. Henriette Kanengeiser emigrated from Austria to New York in 1886. En route, she asked around to find out who the most successful person in America was, and upon arrival started her own fashion line under a new name. She morphed into the pseudonym in order to tap into the power and success of the Carnegie name. Whether or not the name gifted her with special powers I’m not sure, but either way Hattie Carnegie was pretty magical. Here is why:

1. Carnegie was a wonderful fashion designer without actually sewing anything. In 1909 she opened a little hat shop in New York, and her first clothing collection was established in 1918. Carnegie was the first fashion house to sell ready-to-wear lines as a high-end luxury. Although unable to even hem a dress, she was brilliant at envisioning clothing and accessories and would work together with others to create her pieces.

2. By the 1920s, Hattie Carnegie Inc. branched quickly with hats, accessories, and jewelry, selling pieces that were directly bought from Paris couturiers. Americans could buy Chanel in New York rather than having to travel halfway across the globe.
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10 Things About: Yayoi Kusama

By: Stephanie Fereiro

I can’t begin to explain my fascination with Yayoi Kusama, nor do I believe she would want me to. Kusama is one of Japan’s most prolific artists, and is best known for her massive Infinity Net paintings, her sculptures, her performance art, and her installations. She is also a novelist, a poet, and a fashion designer. Kusama’s artwork is a constant exploration of the way she sees the world, and a meticulous examination of the “single dot” in the universe that is her own life. As Ali Smith wrote in Tate Etc., “For [Kusama], art is a fertile bleed, something which spreads on to the walls, the floor, out into the room, all over the self. Mindscape and landscape are the same in her work, a reminder that we are all where we live, that we make what surrounds us as much as it makes us.”

Kusama, now 82 years old, will be launching a collaboration with Louis Vuitton in July 2012. She is the first female artist to collaborate with the brand.

1. Yayoi Kusama’s childhood in rural Japan was “like a nightmare” (her words in issue 10 of Lula, not mine). Born in 1929 to an abusive mother, she experienced continual hallucinations throughout her childhood, and was prone to morbid obsessions. The first subjects to appear in Kusama’s earliest paintings from childhood were her mother, the sun, the moon, and clouds.

2. Kusama left Japan for New York City in 1958 and spent several years entrenched in the art scene; she exhibited with everyone from Donald Judd to Andy Warhol, and was friendly with Georgia O’Keeffe.

3. In the sixties, Kusama opened a boutique where she sold her own mod clothing designs, many of which were made from see-through materials. Nudity was common in much of her work at the time, and the shop included private studios where models would have their bodies painted and photographed.

10 Things About: Emilie Flöge

By: wornette

The desolate starry nights of Van Gogh and the sinister black cat of the Chat Noir cabaret always seem to follow me when I step into a print store or art supply shop. The quantity of these images seems endless—and then there are the decadent gold patterns that unravel within themselves a woman’s face, shining at me from the shop walls. Her face and dress seem to be an extension of a greater work. For a long time I didn’t know who those paintings depicted. I would see them everywhere, from postcards to notebooks to Nike shoes.

One day, I caught a television segment on Austrian symbolist Gustav Klimt, and there on my TV screen were the patterned dresses and sophisticated women. The program uncovered some of the mysterious women within the paintings, including Emilie Flöge, Klimt’s best friend for almost thirty years. She was a seamstress and later couturiere, serving as collaborator, muse and model for many of Klimt’s paintings, where her unique fashion style and clothing was wonderfully depicted. Here are ten reasons why Flöge was as equally (if not more) awesome as Klimt.

1. More than just a muse for Klimt’s paintings, Emilie Flöge and her older sister Pauline established themselves as completely independent business women in 1895, a rarity in a time in which women were repressed and dependant on men. They opened up a couture house in Vienna called Schwestern Flöge that was extremely successful for over 30 years.
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