A few months ago we visited the Tartan exhibition at the V&A in Dundee. It runs until the 14th of January 2024. I wasn’t all that sure if I wanted to see it to be honest. In Scotland we have a history of leaving tartan to the tourists, but I enjoyed the exhibition which has the oldest piece of tartan on show, but it’s not all history. There are tartan outfits by designers such as Vivienne Westwood who was fond of using tartan as are some Japanese designers. Sadly I can’t remember who designed the modern outfits below.
Some designs are quite wild!
Then we get back to a bit more traditional, allthough I’m not sure about the bikini top below.
Of course Victoria and Albert were very keen on tartan, so there was a lot of it about in their time, not bad considering it had been completely banned by the government after the Jacobite rebellions.
More modern again.
Below is an army recruitment poster.
Below is some tartanware Mauchline Victoriana, made from wood. There are shortbread tins and such in the exhibition too. Tartan seems to have ended up on a lot of merchandise over the years.
Below is a portrait of the actor Alan Cumming, with a kilt wrapped around his neck, and nothing else on for some reason.
The outfits below are apparently Manhattan tartan. The colours are supposed to be the skin colours of the ethnic groups found in Manhattan. Designed by J Morgan and Suzanne H Bocanegra of New York. Pink is supposed to be Caucasian flesh colour. See also Manhattan Financial.
Just recently Billy Connolly donated a kilt to the exhibition. He explained that when he was a youngster you rarely saw a man in a kilt, and if you did see one then the kids all chanted Kiltie, kiltie cauld bum at them! It’s absolutely true, it’s only in recent years that kilts have become so popular to bridegrooms, and then of course there’s the Tartan army, Scotland’s football supporters but they didn’t get a mention in the exhibition at all.
Although I enjoyed the exhibition I felt that there were some glaring misses. If I had been setting it up I would have asked for donations of stage clothes from Rod Stewart, The Bay City Rollers (a fan donated her tartan trousers) tartan was popular among punk bands. The film below is about the making of Billy Connolly’s kilt, they got him into one at last! Honestly someone should have ironed or steamed it as it’s badly wrinkled now, it’s a real shame it wasn’t taken good care of. You can see Jack’s post on the exhibition here.
It’s lovely to see how the V&A has been updated and provides such wonderful exhibits. When I was a girl growing up in Dundee, the V&A was a formidable, dark building. I’m sure there were wonderful exhibits, but the building was almost frightening to me when I was small. The last time I visited, the new building wasn’t open yet, but I could see that it was going to be a great improvement. Thanks for featuring it.
Aline,
I think that you might have been at The McManus Gallery in Dundee. That’s the really old Victorian one and is very dark in places. The V&A has only been in Dundee since 2018 and it’s the only branch of the V&A outside London.. There was a big hoo-ha about the very modernist building but whenever we go there people are always standing with their backs to the building as they point their phones at the beautiful sailing ship Discovery (Captain Scott) the Victorian Antarctic Exploration ship.
Fascinating! I love the Victorian dress and all the beautiful details like the ruffled hem.
I had no idea that there is a V&A outside of London!
Anbolyn,
The Dundee V&A is fairly new and it’s the only one outside London. Of course it is nowhere near as large but the exhibitions in London do end up at Dundee too, which is great. Tartan will be moving down to London when it finishes in Dundee early in 2024.