Watchdog loses thread with 'vanity tartan' say kilt makers

THEY are worn as a badge of Scottish identity, their designs and fabrics jealously guarded over generations by owners.

But the government body set up to preserve and promote Scotland's famous tartans has come under attack for bringing the industry into "disrepute".

Leading kilt makers and weavers have accused the National Archives of Scotland (NAS), a government agency, of accepting a flurry of "vanity" patterns from around the world onto the official tartans register.

They include designs submitted by the Clan MacEvil, a group of friends in the US; the Orange Fanaticos, who follow the Major League Soccer side Houston Dynamos; the Werris Creek Catholic Parish, from a town in New South Wales; and an Argentine Flag, meant to be a computer screen saver.

Responsibility for the official register was transferred to the NAS last year from the Scottish Tartans Authority, an industry-supported panel of experts.

But whereas the STA insisted that all applicants had to submit a commercially woven example of their tartan before official status was granted, the NAS accepts electronically generated pictorial images.

Blair Macnaughton, managing director of Macnaughton Holdings, one of Scotland's oldest and most respected kilt makers and weavers, said he had grave reservations about the legitimacy of many new tartans being registered. Most are devised by families and small organisations among the Scottish diaspora.

Macnaughton said: "The NAS don't have the skills to determine what is and what isn't a tartan. It's difficult to classify exactly what a tartan is, but to my mind, it has to have a certain look.

"A number of the new tartans being registered have caused me to raise a quizzical eyebrow. If there are too many stripes or lines, it no longer becomes a tartan, but a fashion design."

The Holyrood Parliament voted through the Scottish Register of Tartans Bill last February, setting up the official government register, as a means of promoting tartans worldwide.

Since it came into being, the NAS's register (SRT) has accepted 140 registrations, rejecting 31. In all, there are 6,014 tartans on the database, nearly all of which have been taken from the previous register.

But while the SRT was at first broadly supported by many in the industry as a way of boosting the profile of tartan, it has no recognised tartan experts, leading to concerns about its decision-making process. Macnaughton, whose family firm dates back to 1783, pointed to an entry accepted last week for a Catholic parish in New South Wales, Australia.

A striking design of no less than nine colours – two shades of green and blue, with purple, red, white, silver, and gold – it is, he said, "no more than a fancy piece of tweed".

"This isn't a tartan and registrations like this will rightly bring the tartan industry into disrepute," he said. "It cannot be woven commercially – it has nine colours – and the only rule of tartan design that it does follow is that is symmetrical. More than anything, it just doesn't look like a tartan."

Under section two of the Scottish Register of Tartans Act, a tartan is defined as "a design which is capable of being woven consisting of two or more alternating coloured stripes which combine vertically and horizontally to form a repeated chequered pattern".

Brian Wilton, a director of the STA, a registered charity, said: "Very regrettably, the best laid plans have indeed gang aft agley. The purpose of the bill was to assist in protecting tartan, but some industry voices believe it is achieving the opposite and registering many tartans which, under the control of the STA, would never have seen the light of day.

"There is a clutch of problems which is resulting in the acceptance of new registrations which don't reach the previously high standards that we, as the recognised industry body, insisted upon."

He added: "Our policy was always to request proof of commercial use of any new tartan design within a reasonable time after its registration. NAS chose not to go down that route, with the result that many designs are merely paper exercises where there is no intention of having them woven or used in any commercial sense."

Alistair Buchan, chairman of Selkirk-based weavers, Lochcarron of Scotland, said: "The majority of tartans being registered are either families or small organisations in the US. It's not really what we felt the register should be for. The important thing for most people is to get their certificate, but there's no way of guaranteeing the tartans are being woven.

"The register is becoming very detached from the actual tartan and weaving industry in Scotland. The STA could have done a better job at a fraction of the cost. Instead, the wheel has been reinvented."

Buchan added that if the SRT fails to take on advice from tartan experts, its credibility will only suffer more.

"If the register severs its ties with the STA, it will create real ill-feeling." he added. "It'd make a nonsense of a register which is already in danger of becoming a gimmick."

A spokesman for the Scottish Government, speaking on behalf of the NAS, defended the register as making tartan more accessible to a global audience than previously. He said: "The tartan register safeguards one of Scotland's most valuable assets for future generations. The register is making tartan more accessible than ever before as an online resource for people to research, design their own family tartan and have it woven in Scotland.

"All entries are made in accordance with the criteria set out in the Scottish Register of Tartans Act 2008, as agreed by parliament."