Reports abound of Highlanders in battle throwing off their philamhors prior to a Highland charge and presenting the enemy with a truly frightening spectacle — a horde of semi-naked ‘savages’ roaring and screaming like banshees with studded shields to the fore and broadswords held aloft. A sight and sound that would chill all but the bravest of adversaries.Plotting a timeline for the philamhor t...
The preservation of the kilt - and indeed the tartans from which it is fashioned - can be laid at the door of a series of lucky happenstances: historical coincidences that have preserved, promoted and embellished a way of life and a mode of dress that caught - and still catches - the imagination of the world. Even during the 1747 - 1782 ban on the wearing of ‘Highland garb’ - which only applied...
The Story of Tartan Sunday, 5 March 2023 by Scots Connection, Specialists in Scottish tartans. Copyright © 2023 F SCOTLAND'S MANY ICONS, tartan is the most instantly recognisable. From the Highland Games circuits of North America and Europe to the fashion catwalks of Milan, its provenance is unmistakable. It is Scotland's very own international brand identity, and what makes this all the more remarkable is that no other country lays ...
Portion from 'An Incident in the Rebellion of 1745', David Morier, 1746 During the Highland Uprisings of 1715 and 1745, clansmen fighting on both sides were identified not by their tartan, but by their cap badges - the white cockade of a Jacobite supporter or the red or yellow crosses of ribbon worn by their opponents. The most recognisable tartans from this era were therefore military...
Over the subsequent thirty six years only a few minor infringements of the rule occurred. The Highlands were exhausted; the Chiefs who had been “out in the '45” were in exile. All that the inhabitants of the far flung glens really wanted was a return to peaceful normality, even if it meant being in denial of their cultural identity. Or perhaps they knew that common sense would ultimately preva...
Sinclair Clanswoman, Robert Ronald McIan, 1845 Over the 19th century, the wearing of Highland dress on both formal and informal occasions, accelerated. With the British Royal Family annually in residence in Aberdeenshire, Scottish Highland dress acquired an unexpected sophistication. Consider, for example, R.R. McIan's fanciful series of the costumes of the clans drawn for the Highland...
