99% Invisible - Plaid: Articles of Interest #2

Episode Date: September 29, 2018

Lumberjacks wore plaid. Punks wore plaid mini skirts. The Beach Boys used to be called the Pendletones, and they wore plaid with their surfboards. Lots of different groups have adopted the pattern over the course of the 20th century, but if we want to explore how this pattern proliferated, we’ve got to go to Scotland. Articles of Interest is a show about what we wear: a six-part series looking at clothing within 99% Invisible created by Avery Trufelman. Episodes will be released on Tuesdays and Fridays from September 25th through October 12th. Plaid: Articles of Interest #2

I couldn't figure it out. I was hitting on a lot of straight people. This is Anna Pulley. She's a writer. And when she moved from Chicago to San Francisco, she didn't know who to hit on anymore. Midwestern queer culture is extremely different than Bay Area queer culture. And one of the things that was most noticeable to me was fashion. Some of the queer signals from the Midwest didn't quite hold, like, plaid flannel shirts. I wear flannel and I feel, gare. In the Midwest, way more so, I think.

If you are part of a group, there are things you can wear or ways you can style your hair, signs that show that you are part of that group. Flannel was one way to signify, like, I exist. But you can't really stop other people from wearing these signals. And so eventually the power of that signal gets diluted. So if you see someone wearing plaid, no, doesn't mean anything to you?

Well, I might first think, are you a bicamessenger? Oh, I'm a bicamessenger. And then the next thing you know, you can't even tell what clothing is signaling what anymore. Yeah, one night I was rebuffed by this straight lady and I got upset about it. And also I'd been thinking about hipsters a lot because they appropriate a lot of working-class culture motifs. And flannel is one of them. So it doesn't seem like lesbians are appropriating, working classware? Yeah, so that's an interesting, I don't know who actually owns, you know,

if anyone can own a fabric. Articles of interest, a show about what we wear. And so maybe the ideas about clothes you can attach or ideas about class an idea of home to a piece of cloth Any fork and wear clothes, but if you ain't got the attitude and style to carry it off man, you're just a closed horse Lumberjack's war plaid punk punks war plaid mini skirts, the beach boys. I kid you not. Used to be called the Pendletones and they were plaid with their surfboards.

So many different groups have adopted plaid. So it almost doesn't mean anything anymore. And really, why are we all wearing this? This particular pattern, which once once upon a time, was mostly concentrated in the upper corner of this one island off the coast of Europe. Certainly for Scotland, its dress. Dress is the thing that identifies people in Scotland, it dress people's their bagpipes as well.

This is Peter McDonald, the historian at the Scottish Tartons Authority. They call this pattern tartan, not plaid. We don't use that word for patterns in this country. Platt is a government. The Scotsman who lived in the Highlands, the northern hilly part of the country, used to wrap themselves in a cloth. Almost like a blanket, kind of like an Indian sorry.

So if you like it's a tartan saree, would be the nearest equivalent? That bolt of cloth was called a plaid, and it had a tartan pattern on it. That's how the term got into the US, and that where they become synonymous with the pattern. It's not like back then there were tartan shirts and tartan scarves. No, tartan was on these traditional plads and overcoats and on the traditional pants,

which were called trues. Trues are tartan trowels, but they're not trowsies because they're tights, they included the feet, so they're more like ladies' tights, you know. So tartan was kind of this parochial little pattern, but Scotsmen in the country used to wear, and it was pretty much only used on these obscure traditional Highland garments that I had never heard of before. And then something happened. Something that would end up turning Tarton loose on the world. These obscure traditional Highland clothes were banned.

The Act banned, it killed, plaidids and other elements of Highland dress and outdoor coats in Tartan you can't wear as well. The Act Peter McDonald is talking about is the Dress Act of 1746. Scotland was being taken over by the Hannavarian Empire. And many of the Scots who fought back were from the Highlands and so they wore tartan coats and Keltz and plaids. Put in modern pilots, they would be seen as terrorists, or freedom fighters depending on which side you were on, but that's the reason for the ban.

It was a way to suppress the resistance by limiting what they wore. Men were not allowed to wear highland clothes for 35 years in Scotland. But here's the thing. Just like banned books become the cool thing to read. When Scottish clothes were banned, they became the cool thing to wear. As always, when you're not allowed to wear something, that means somebody else immediately will.

This is Jonathan Faire's author of the book, Tarton. And he says what the ban did was that it made Highland clothes trendy outside of Scotland. Suddenly, Tartan was also being worn in England. That moment made Tartan a fashionable fabric. It was no longer a sign of indigenous Highlanders. It became something that perhaps lowlanders or English people with scotish sympathy started to wear. But Scottish men had an option.

If they wanted to keep wearing their traditional clothes during the ban, there was a loophole. They could go fight for the British Empire. The ban didn't apply to Scotsmen who joined the army. So over time, it encouraged people if they wanted to continue into a native garb to join the military. This meant Scotsman wearing tartans were deployed around the world, which influenced the style and popularity of similar-looking patterns across the colonies, like Madras and India.

Although I would say Madras. And checkered bandanas and Jamaica, and the chukka cloth of the Messiah warriors. The colonialism of the British Empire spread these influences around and increased global demand for tartan and tartan-like fabrics. The presence of highland, regimental soldiers wearing tartan and some form or another would have influenced people directly

on a purely aesthetic way. And meanwhile, people in England with Scottish sympathies all got together in 1778 and made a kind of booster group to advocate for Scottish culture. Something called the Highland Society of London was formed in order to try and preserve the customs and manners, what was called the Highland Revival, the Great Highland Revival. They were responsible for the repeal of the dress act in 1782. And so by the time the dress band was finally lifted,

it was just like Tartan Mania. The great Highland revival was in full swing. Scottish soldiers were coming home, and now they could wear their Tartan, and Englishmen were wearing Tartan, and people all over the colonies were wearing Tartan, and North Americans were really wearing Tartan. Obviously, the kind of work shirt

that you would particularly identify with American, I'd just say a kind of plaid working shirt. If you go back some of the earliest cloths that we used for to make those work shirts, were exported from Scotland. Tartan became a massive export to the United States. Tartan was a huge export to America in the 1700s, early 1800s. In the United States, Tart was a huge export to America in the 1700s, early 1800s.

In the United States, Tartin was also a symbol of heritage and belonging, if you were a Scotsman who was made to flee your homeland. Or if you literally belonged to a Scotsman. There were lots of very powerful Scottish families very active in the slave trade. These kinds of records are hard to find, but it's said that enslaved people across the colonies also wore tartan-patterned cloth. Because tartan is bright and noticeable. Slaves would be made to wear a cloth with a particular tartan, which said who they belonged to. You were being marked, you were being branded by your owners, by your oppressors, which is pretty chilling, but it certainly for those people was very much a cloth of oppression.

Tartan has been, in many ways, a cloth of oppression, whether the Scots were being oppressed themselves or acting as the hand of the British Empire or perpetuating the global slave trade. And it functions efficiently as a cloth of oppression because it is so loud and highly visible. I do think it has this idea of almost negating the body and becoming literally just the pattern, so you are literally kind of becoming the brand. And tartan can be a brand of so many different conflicting things. In the United States, tartan can be a nod to a many different conflicting things. In the United States, Tarton can be a nod to a rugged highlander, or a monarket colonizer, and that's a side from its associations with I think it is probably associated with ideas of colonialism and empire.

And that's a side from its associations with queerness or lumberjacks or cowboys or bike messengers. Quite literally, there's a tartan for everything. These are the tartan swatches. Dee Williams works at the National Records of Scotland. In these boxes here, and she is showing me the Scottish register of Tartans which is very much not open to the public. How often does someone come to actually at the point? You are the first? Well she said I was the first journalist who

had been in there. Generally we don't we don't offer this. We don't say to people come in and look at all the swatches. Anybody can look online by the way. They can look up every tartan online. There's in that register. They just need to put in a search. They just need to put in a name and it will come back. Tartans traditionally have been associated with Scottish names.

So if your last name is McClain or McAllen or Hany, you can look up the traditional Tartans associated with your clan. I had the clan chief Dr. David Hany came in today and he was looking up his Hany Tartans associated with your clam. I had the Client Chief, Dr. David Hane came in today, and he was looking up his Hane Tartans. But it's not like everyone who lives in Scotland has this long family history

with a traditional last name and a family tartan. And in Scotland, people wear tartan kilts to weddings and funerals and parties. And so, what are you supposed to wear if you're not from a clam? That's where you get other people. They've got personal tartans. Personal tartans for them.

So they've designed a tartan. They really want it just for them. You've also got organization corporate ones. A lot of military ones being registered lately. No matter who you are, or how not Scottish you are, I will bet money that if you peruse the register of tartans, you will eventually find a tartan for something that you like

or can identify with. The zoo panda one. The panda at the Edinburgh zoo has a tartan. It's not like it has pandas on it, it's still just a tartan, but it's black and white. So these are some kinds of scoters. There's a San Francisco tartan. That one. The San Francisco tartan is sandy and scarlet, like the colors of the 49ers. New Jersey's tartan is a sand and blue and little slender bits of red.

Most states in the US have an official tartan and a lot of countries have one. It's in Bobway, News in Bobway, Kenya. Oh wow, this is the Africa folder. Volkswagen, American Express and Coca-Cola have tartans, Nike has a couple. And there is a tartan for the Scottish register of tartans. There is a Scottish register of tartan tartan? Yes. You too could have your very own official tartan.

The certificate costs 70 pounds, and it's 100 pounds if you want it in a wooden frame. But you'll get the tartan name, you'll get the registration number. You can design your own tartan in literally 10 minutes. Because official tartans don't have to be cloth anymore. Online tartan. You can go to any number of online tartan generators. to be cloth anymore. Online, Tartan, and writer.

You can go to any number of online Tartan generators. They're a unique business, club, or personal plaid. And input the colors you want. Choose power. And the thread count, I can adjust the thickness. And ta-da, you have a Tartan, and now it's just saving my Tartan. You'll get Tartan people designing a Tartan

for their dog, you know, or their dead relative and, you know, into thinking why? Our historian friend Peter McDonald is part of the committee that assesses the incoming tartans. They get around eight proposals a week. Quite a lot of what I would call vanity tartans, they're never going to be woven, they're never going to be worn and it's because they can, you know, which doesn't make them good or tasteful or meaningful, frankly. I mean, do some of these threatens get denied? Yes.

And of the new incoming tartans, the majority of them are not from Scotland. Well, top of my head, 70% come from North America, probably most from the US, but a size of proportion from Canada as well. Quite a few from Japan, a lot of Japanese schools seem to like tartans or uniforms, and they did sound from Scotland. But yeah, the majority of them come from America. America is really into tartan. I mean, just go to New York City on April 6th.

That's National Tartan Day, and they put on this huge parade with bagpipes and Scottish terriers and Scottish associations from all over the US. Tartan is one way that white people can claim some sort of cultural heritage. Because you're a young country, you all want to claim your heritage and actually a lot of people claim either Scots or Irish ancestry because it has the cultural icons and identity which help you belong. And everyone wants to belong to something, somewhere, somehow. There was about a 30% increase last year of Tartan's registered. So it's definitely only increase.

In some ways, if you don't get your tartan actually woven, the register of tartans might seem like a cheesy thrill, like one of those online services where you can pay to register a star or buy a plot of land on the moon. But those authentic clan tartans, the ones that represent last names, those were also kind of made up. When you look actually at early examples of surviving tartans, it would not really have been associated with particular families, and

there is no way that 6200 people, Clansmen, could all be wearing the same tartan. This idea of official clan tartans was part of the Great Highland Revival. Gosh, clan tartans start around 1810. Okay, yes, 200 years is old, but that's nothing when you compare it to the ages of the clans themselves. The Macduff, the Macdougles, the Macquaries, the Macallons, those are closer to a thousand years old. But basically, in the 1800s, many of the clan leaders just went and picked out tartans they liked

and renamed them after themselves. Is this kind of like what's your favorite? Yeah, absolutely. Yep, you know, the Campbell chief used the Black Quarched Arten. The Chief of the McKenzie used the 78th or Seaforth Arten. The first and sealed as his true clan tartan, a tartan that's 10 years earlier been being sold as Caledonia. Tartan, plaid, whatever you want to call it. The pattern has taken on so many different meanings and associations. And it has been used symbol has taken on so many different meanings and associations, and it has been used symbolically to unite so many different groups of people. On the surface, the pattern

seems simple, right? It's just a series of overlapping threads, a warp and a weft. But really, if you look at it and get your nose right up close and notice the number of colors, the stripe width, the variation in the ways the threads overlap. You can see it's quite complex, and it can be particular enough to be specific and general enough to be for everyone. I mean, just, yeah, like cultural, just visibility, being able to walk down the street and be like, oh that's another person who's like me, I feel was alone. Like that can be something that Plaid does, which is kind of amazing if you think about a fabric, I'm having power culturally.

The pocket, the piece of paper Words from yesterday There's a portrait painted on the things we love. Articles of Interest is made by myself, Avery Trouffleman, edited by Joe Rosenberg, bagpiping by David Watson, other music by Ray Royal, and intro and outro themes by Sassami Ashworth. Fact check by Graham Haysha, mixed by Kelly Coin,

and Roman Mars is the macho highlander of this whole series. A very special thanks to Crystal Beniz, Isabelle Sloan, Rachel White, Pyrogaultmann, Christina Stokes and Ian Ferguson, as well as Katie Mingle, Emmett Fitzgerald, Sharif Yusef, Vivian Lee, Delaney Hall, Kurt Colstead, and the whole 99Pi team. There's a portrait of painting the things below. Scots are really adamant that kilt are not skirts. Okay, but there's this one important way that kilt are very similar to women's wear. What are you wearing right now?

So I'm wearing my kilt, which is a McPherson ancient tartan. My kilt shoes, kilt brooks, and then to top it up, I've got a Jurassic Park t-shirt. This is David McPherson, who I met outside of bar in Edinburgh. And when he wears his kilt, he also has to wear something called a sporen. So what's a sporen? A sporen is a big furry purse. It's a fur and leather purse that sits right over the crotch.

And it kind of hangs on a chain, round your hips. That attaches to your belt. That attaches to your belt. Because kilts don't have any pockets. So you need to keep your stuff somewhere. So right now I've got my phone in it. I've got my keys. I've got my wallet. Other people, I don't know, they might keep Braveheart on DVD or...

I would prefer pockets. I mean, it's not. You can't get very much in it. Your next article of interest is pockets. Radio Topeon. From PRX.