CAG on museums: Kinloch Anderson and the Scottish Kilt

20th century book of all the clan tartans, incomplete

There’s nothing I like more than a little fashion and cultural history mixed together, and a wee stop to Kinloch Anderson in Leith really taught me a few things about the iconic Scottish kilt. The museum is located in the store and is very small, but encompasses some interesting tidbits of history and has a viewing window so that you can actually watch the kilt-makers create their handmade kilts.

View inside of the workshop

I found out that kilts actually did not come into popularity until around the 16^th century. For a brief period of time the checked tartans were outlawed between 1745 and 1782 in an attempt to break up the Highland Clan system, but when George IV visited Edinburgh in 1822 the pageantry of chiefs wearing their tartans for the King reignited their popularity and iconic cultural connections. This prompted families who did not have a clan tartan to want one of their own,  and the tartan become a symbol of kinship and belonging for Scots.

Sporrans, or the murse (male purse)

Typically there was a royal and a hunting tartan, which a tailor in the shop explained was really just to get a bit more variety in dress. Members of the Royal Family wear different varieties of the Scottish tartan as well. For the Royal Family many different tartans have been designed for them by Kinloch Anderson over the years. Because of their early connections to the Royal Stuarts (Stewarts) and Mary Queen of Scots, the Royals wear a variety of Stewart and Balmoral tartans.

From a contemporary fashion perspective, Kinloch Anderson has designed tartan patterns for some major brands which have become very iconic- Glenlivet scotch and especially Barbour.