Clan tartan ties, unforgivable sin?

[imrichmond]

Respectfully, which one we think looks better will not answer the question of which is more traditionally correct if that's part of your calculation.

In the case of tartan ties, it seems to me that fashion is perhaps a more determining factor than tradition. When I began piping in the late 1950s, for example, the fashion in Ontario was to wear a tie in the same tartan as the kilt. This was the prevailing fashion in pipe bands (those that did not wear a military style uniform) and among kilt-wearers at highland games and other informal functions. Around the mid-1970s, the fashion changed. The tartan tie was out and the so-called "clan tie" was in. This was a tie, usually navy blue or black, with multiple replicas of the appropriate clan crest embroidered on it, generally in slanting rows. That fashion passed, in its turn, after about 20 years, to be replaced by the current trend of wearing ties unrelated to tartan or clan. Many pipe bands, meanwhile, nowadays have their ties custom made in a design specific to the band. There are, of course, numerous exceptions, but the above outlines the changes I have observed in the wearing of ties over the past 60-odd years.

I must say that I was struck during my last two sojourns in Scotland (2012 and 2014) by the number of Scots I encountered wearing a tartan tie with their kilt, given that this fashion has largely disappeared in North America. It appears, however, to be quite unexceptionable in the old country.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that pipe bag covers, except in the military, have followed pretty much the same fashion as ties. Up until roughly the mid-1970s, the tartan bag cover was the norm. From the mid-70s on, solid-colour bag covers have replaced the tartan ones, which are now rarely seen outside the military. Again, it seems to me that this is a question of fashion rather than of tradition.