As some in the Chicagoland Rabble know, I've been working on a Chicago District Tartan for some time, because we don't have an official one. It is true that when Tartan Week was trying to get the festival adopted in Chicago, they had a tartan design competition and selected a Chicago tartan, but the tartan was never registered and the city never formally adopted it. I've tried to get in touch with someone regarding the original Chicago tartan, but to no avail.

I have a few rough designs for the Chicago District Tartan, and would like to get tartan designers, kilt wearers, and kilt makers opinions on the various rough designs I have so far. The common link with all of them is that they incorporate the colors of the Chicago flag, which wasn't easy since the colors are red white and blue, and many of my designs ended up looking like gingham.

I won't go into the specific symbolism each tartan has, but generally speaking, red=Chicago fire, blue=Lake Michigan/Chicago River, green=Chicago's motto "City in a Garden", black=architecture, white=unity and peace.

Please vote for your favorite and let me know why, and why you like, or dislike the others.

Design No.1. This is based solely on the colors present in the Chicago flag:


Design No.2. A variation on Design No.1 with green incorporated into it:


Design No.3. Design No.2 eventually morphed into this design:


Design No.4. This is based off of the MacKenzie tartan since John Kinzie is known as Chicago's first white settler:


Let me know what y'all think!