There is a little tartan flag on the moon.Commander Alan Bean, pilot of Apollo 12's lunar module, planted itthere in 1969, just a few months after Neil Armstrong had stuck anAmerican Stars & Stripes into the same lunar surface. Bothastronuauts were proud of their Scottish roots.

The flag servesas a powerful symbol for a textile design that is the ever-burningbeacon of a small nation that has always travelled well.

Tartanhas survived a Royal ban, witnessed some of the greatest battles inmodern warfare, added colour to fashion catwalks and been emblazoned onthe sides of passenger jets and Formula One cars.

From clanchiefs to pop stars, from Holyrood to Hollywood, tartan is truly thefabric of a nation – and it is just as prominent now, in Scotland, andall over the world, and beyond, as it has ever been throughout itscolourful history.

Tartan - a chequered past

The journey to tracethe origins of tartan takes us far from the Highlands of Scotland, andthe lunar highlands of the moon, to the arid desert of western Chinaand the Silk Road, the ancient caravan route through the heart of Asia.It is here in the shifting sands of the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiangthat the earliest tartan remnant was found.

Takla Makan means "goin and you'll never come out" but thankfully sometime around the 16thcentury an intrepid Swedish explorer, Sven Heden, managed to survivethe hazardous desert crossing and emerge from the other side havingmade an incredible discovery.

He stumbled across the burial placeof well-preserved mummies who, despite being in China, had all thefacial characteristics of Caucasians. The textiles Heden found in theirfinal resting place were beautifully woven from wool yarn, amongstwhich were flawlessly preserved, intricate tartans dating from between1200 and 700 BC – which bore a striking similarity to Celtic tartansfrom northwest Europe.

Perhaps these early travellers were thevictims of a natural disaster or were simply swallowed up by the fickledangers of the desert. Celts are thought to have come originally fromthe southeast of Russia around the Caspian Sea, gradually headingwestwards to Britain and France. Were these tartan-clad people earlyScots?

After this ancient appearance, tartan seemed to disappearfrom the history books until the sixteenth century. It most probablyalways existed as an art form and clothing in the wild, isolatedHighlands of Scotland but few visitors ventured that far north to seethe 'Scotch savages' who donned it. The odd Scottish mercenary who wentgallivanting in Europe at the time was often noted for his outlandishgear – and even then there was much gossiping among ladies of the dayas to what, if anything, was worn under their colourful garb. Soobviously Sir Sean was no the first Scot with sex appeal.

And the word tartan is thought to come from the French tiretaine, which was in use around this time, and referred to a half-wool, half-linen plaid design of Scottish origin.

Also,a German woodcut dating from about 1631 shows the closest example ofthe complex patterns of what we now recognise as tartan. The sceneshowed Highland mercenaries, in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, awar-faring Swedish king, wearing tartan kilts.

The '45 rebellion and the tartan ban

Contraryto modern popular belief tartan patterns have no traceable historicallinks with specific Scottish families or clans but the emergence of theromantic, politically rebellious image of tartan and its associationwith clans springs from arguably the most tragic event in Scottishhistory – the Battle of Culloden in 1745. Charles Edward Stuart,grandson of the deposed King James II, sparked the so-called '45rebellion. Bonnie Prince Charlie landed in Scotland that year in anattempt to reclaim the throne for his father James Stuart, the OldPretender. Charlie raised the Scottish clans in rebellion against theBritish monarch, King George II. The Jacobite uprising – from Jacobus,the Latin form of James – and Charles' decision to adopt Highland dressas the uniform for his army at Culloden resulted in tartan becoming thesymbol of the Jacobites.

A host of Highland clans in traditionaldress swelled the Young Pretender Charlie's army and after a narrowlyfailed attempt to march on London, his 5,000-strong Jacobite force werebrutally defeated at Culloden Moor, near Inverness, by a mixed Britisharmy led by the Duke of Cumberland. The aftermath of the battle waslong and bitter with scores of Highland communities forced to flee fromtheir homes.

The carrying of weapons and the wearing of tartanand Highland dress were outlawed, with the tartan ban enforced by the1746 Dress Act. The British government wanted to humiliate theHighlanders, crush the spirit of the clan chiefs and stifle therebellion. But, as is often the case with prohibition of any kind,banning tartan made it seem more, rather than less, important andelevated it to a kind of cult status, with many Highlanders floutingthe ban. By 1782, with the ageing Bonnie Prince Charlie in exile inItaly, the Government decided that Jacobite resistance was over and theban on tartan and Highland dress was repealed.

Clan Tartan - Wilsons of Bannockburn and the Great Pretenders

Districttartans existed in so much as certain communities could be identifiedby the tartan they wore, and the clans at Culloden gave the first hintof tartan being used as a clan uniform. But this only emerged becauseeach community had their own weaver who would produce the same distincttartan for those living in close geographical proximity to each other.A weaving firm, Wilsons of Bannockburn, who had continued to make andsupply tartan, mainly to the military and to sell abroad, during theyears of the ban from 1746-82, is credited with the 'invention' of clantartans. Between 1765 and 1924, when William Wilson and Son went out ofbusiness, the firm scoured the Highlands in search of old patterns tore-introduce under new names if the original district or clan could notbe determined. The Cockburn Collection of named samples, compiled byWilsons between 1810 and 1820, can be found in the Mitchell Library inGlasgow.

True to the age it was a pair of chancers, claiming theywere the long lost grandsons of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who were tosupplement Wilsons' collection with a highly suspect, yet ultimatelyvaluable, tartan tome of their own. In 1822 two brothers, John HayAllen and Charles Stuart Hay Allen, fooled a gullible Edinburgh societyinto believing they had discovered an ancient manuscript detailing thepatterns of various clan tartans. They were greatly feted and in 1842published the grandly titled Vestiarium Scoticum containingcolour illustrations of 75 tartans. The book was a huge success amongclan chiefs and weavers and its contents were never questioned at thetime. The book was later proved to be a giant hoax – the vast majorityof the 'old' clan tartans had been dreamed up by Charles theillustrator! But despite the scam, the book has played an importantrole in the history of Scottish tartans and many of the dubious tartanshave become official clan tartans.

The Scottish Parliament isabout to create the first ever Scottish Register of Tartans. This willbuild on the work of the registers currently held in private hands –and which contain over 6000 tartan designs – to create a definitive,independent and permanent national register of tartan. The project is aunique collaboration between the Scottish Government, Jamie McGrigorMSP, the Scottish tartan industry, the Court of the Lord Lyon King ofArms and the National Archives Scotland to make the existing archivesof tartan more widely available and to help preserve and promote whatis one of Scotland's most iconic and valuable assets.

Nowadays acharitable organisation called the Scottish Tartan Authority, formed in1996 by Scotland's leading weavers and tartan retailers, is the world'sleading information source on tartans and Highland dress. It maintainsthe de facto register of historical and contemporary tartans and actsas the Registrar for all new tartans and is frequently commissioned todesign new variations of the famous fabric for everyone from footballclubs to midwives.

But who has the 'right' to wear this tartan orthat tartan? A myth often bandied about is that you can't wear a tartanunless you have the same name as the tartan but this is a ratherquaint, out-dated idea that has thankfully become defunct. The truth isyou can wear almost any tartan that takes your fancy, regardless of theclan, but most people usually want to sport one with which they feelthey have some family link, however tenuous.

The Royal seal of approval

GeorgeIV's 1822 visit to Edinburgh was a turning point in spreading thepopularity of tartan as it began to be internationally recognised asrepresentative of Scottish, rather than merely Highland Scottishidentity. Known for his extravagant lifestyle the newly crowned Kingheaded north of the border for a colourful national pageant,choreographed by the famous romantic novelist Sir Walter Scott. Theportly king donned a version of Highland dress made of the newlyinvented Royal Stuart tartan and was surrounded by Highland chieftainsand Lowland lairds bedecked in tartan. The "collective hallucination",as the show was wittily described at the time, provided a huge boost tothe weaving industry, generations of whom had suffered during thetartan ban, and was a brilliant marketing vehicle for Scottish tourism– both of which have endured to the present day.

This royalendorsement of tartan was continued into the Victorian era, the age ofromanticism. Queen Victoria, along with her consort Prince Albert, bothenthusiastic fans of all things 'Highland', decorated their belovedScottish home at Balmoral Castle on Deeside from top to toe in tartan,increasing its fashionability in Britain, France, and elsewhere.

Almost200 years later some 8,000 clan members and 30,000 visitors willcongregate in Edinburgh for another royal pageant to rival that ofGeorge IV's. Prince Charles is to be the patron of The Gathering 2009,which will bring together clan representatives from all over the worldat Holyrood Park. The Scottish Government is promoting 2009, the 250thanniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, as the Year of Homecoming, inan effort to attract people worldwide who have Scottish roots. Thetwo-day event, on July 25/26, will be the first time since WalterScott's Royal Pageant that so many clans have assembled in the Scottishcapital.

The fabric of modern fashion

While George IV,trussed up in all his tartan finery, would have fancied himself asquite the Highland dandy, little could he have imagined how fashionabletartan would still be two centuries later.

Tartan creations byfamous modern-day fashion designers Vivienne Westwood, Jean PaulGaultier and Sir Hardy Amies were on display alongside 19th centuryHighland Regiment uniforms in a 2007 exhibition, at the National Museumof Costume near Dumfries, that explored the history of tartan inclothing as it has evolved through the ages – from battledress toball-gowns, military uniforms to bondage trousers.

Tartan is allthe rage today and rarely off the fashion catwalks of the top couturehouses, from New York to London, Paris to Milan.

The flamboyantWestwood, an innovator of punk and new wave styles in the 1970s and80s, has continually embraced tartan in her collections and is afaithful client of the Lochcarron mill in the Scottish borders,creating a host of new tartans in conjunction with their design team.She has used the fabric in a variety of boundary-pushing designs, whichhave influenced other major designers such as Alexander MacQueen (agood Scottish name), Tommy Hilfiger (reportedly a descendant of RobertBurns), Jean-Paul Gaultier (well-known wearer of the kilt), Jimmy Choo(an offspring of the Mchines?) and more.

Unlike so many fashionsthat never make the leap from the haute couture of the catwalk to thehigh-street stores, tartan has become ubiquitous in popular chains suchas Top Shop, Miss Selfridge, Next and Debenhams.

And Burberry,whose world-famous trademarked check first appeared in the 1930s as araincoat lining, now occupies a weird place in the fashion world. Itgraces many expensive luxury products while being the most bootleggedtartan in existence, hugely popular with so-called 'chavs' who snap up'versions' of Burberry sports gear at street markets all over the UK.Yet, even more strangely, the brand continues to thrive at bothextremes of the market.

Scotland's other damous fabrics

But it's not just tartan that inspires today's top fashiondesigners. Dubbed 'the new Alexander MacQueen', Christopher Kane hasbeen working in tandem with the famous Scottish cashmere firm Johnstonsof Elgin to produce a commercial cashmere collection. Kane, who is froma small village near Motherwell, was voted 2007 Scottish Designer ofthe Year. He recently designed a capsule collection for Top Shop andturned down a job offer from Donatella Versace – who hasn't takenKane's snub personally and he has become her favourite fashionconsultant. The increasingly high profile, yet unassuming,24-year-old's continuing work with Johnstons Cashmere provides amassive boost to the Scottish cashmere industry.

And three years ago giant American sportswear manufacturer Nike gaveanother iconic, yet ailing, Scottish fabric a much-neededshot-in-the-arm. Harris Tweed, a luxury cloth produced in the WesternIsles of Scotland, was once seen as the favoured attire of the upperclasses and Royalty. But fashion changed and the tweed producers fellon hard times. Then in 2004 Nike approached Donald John MacKay, aweaver on the Isle of Harris, with an idea to update a 1980s basketballshoe called The Terminator by using Harris Tweed. The trainer was aroaring success and the industry benefitted enormously from an unlikelypartnership.

Today the textiles sector in Scotland has an annual turnover of over£1 billion with the thriving tartan industry generating more than £350mof that total to the Scottish economy every year and supporting morethan 4,000 jobs.

From humble beginnings tartan has grown to become an internationallyrecognised symbol of 'Scottishness', helping to promote Scotland aroundthe world and boost the country's tourism industry. Events, such asTartan Day in the US and Canada, have capitalised on the image oftartan as an attractive, contemporary fashion textile, while it alsofeeds the growing genealogical tourism market with those fascinated bytheir Scottish heritage who are eager to adopt their family's tartan orcreate a new one.

Nearly forty years ago, the American astronaut Alan Bean took half ayard of his ancestor's tartan on the Apollo 12 mission, agreeing toleave half of it on the moon and bring half of it back for deposit inthe Clan MacBean archives. And on a clear, cloudless night, with agiant telescope, well, who knows, you might just be able to see aglimmer of its vibrant red sett, an enduring emblem for Scotland andits well-travelled national fabric.

Further information

bbc.co.uk

catwalkqueen.tv

dailyrecord.co.uk

nms.ac.uk

scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com

scotsman.com

Tartan Today on tartankilts.com

The History of Tartan on tartankilts.com

The Tartan Ban on tartankilts.com

Harris Tweed on wikipedia.org

Courtesy of Scotland.org