While the first uniform tartan is believed to date to 1713 (with some evidence of militia use earlier), it was not until around the early 19th century that patterns were created for specific Scottish clans most of the traditional ones were established between 18. This marked an era of rather politicised 'tartanry' and 'Highlandism'. It was adopted more widely as the symbolic national dress of all Scotland when King George IV wore a tartan kilt in his 1822 visit to Scotland it was promoted further by Queen Victoria. When the law was repealed in 1782, tartan was no longer ordinary dress for most Highlanders. The Dress Act of 1746 attempted to bring the warrior clans there under government control by banning Highland dress, then an important element of Gaelic Scottish culture. Early tartans were only particular to locales, rather than any specific Scottish clan like other materials, tartan designs were produced by local weavers for local tastes, using the most available natural dyes. Scottish tartan was originally associated with the Highlands. The resulting blocks of colour repeat vertically and horizontally in a distinctive pattern of rectangles and lines known as a sett.

Up close, this pattern forms alternating short diagonal lines where different colours cross from further back, it gives the appearance of new colours blended from the original ones. Traditional tartan is made with alternating bands of coloured (pre-dyed) threads woven in usually matching warp and weft in a simple 2/2 twill pattern. Outside of Scotland, tartan is sometimes also known as ' plaid' (particularly in North America) however in Scotland, a plaid is a large piece of tartan cloth which can be worn several ways. The earliest surviving samples of tartan-style cloth are around 3,000 years old and were discovered in Xinjiang, China.

Tartan is particularly associated with Scotland, as Scottish kilts almost always have tartan patterns. Tartans originated in woven wool, but now they are made in other materials. Tartan ( Scottish Gaelic: breacan ) is a patterned cloth consisting of criss-crossed, horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours, forming simple or complex rectangular patterns.

Black brocade texture seamless