Scottish Tartan World Register
The Structure of the Scottish Tartans World Register
The Reason Why :-
The lack of a proper statutory Register of Tartans has led to the present situation where there are a number of places for tartan recording. Through the lack of a single central place to check the uniqueness of new designs, tartans names, etc. there is a likelihood of trivialisation and muddle.
The commercial world demands increasingly that there is reassurance of the uniqueness of designs. Owners/creators of new tartans require certification of the recording. The result is a commercial demand for the formal services of a Register.
Common to all is that these reassurances about tartan, whatever they are, must come from Scotland.
The present recording organisations have different aims and from the outside different corporate images and egos. These may or may not be justified but it has polorised the support for tartan. This diversifies the sources of information and advice. It increases the problem to the uniformed.
Here is an attempt to provide central register purely involved with unconditional recording. One that issues the minimum of edicts, and which the trade feels, it can use without fear of partisanship or commercial bias.
In the past it has been quite sufficient for social convention to control tartan, policed by the trade. Since the mid eighties with the development of the market economy, the importance it places on corporate images and also the loosening of the conventions of highland dress has lead to the huge demand for more tartans.
Add to this the modern advances in communication through the Internet and the situation is fast becoming chaotic. A formal central and independent Register has become a must.
Tartan has truly turned into a national and cultural logo, which is envied worldwide, but to everyone’s amasement with no formal Register.
Our Scottish politicians might well provide a statutory register in time. They have been approached, but until then, a register should be maintained.
This should not stop those other recording bodies from following their own criteria and ambitions. This register is not here to issue opinions but to be the Scottish base for tartan reference