SCOTLAND’S special contribution to trend and textiles will be the centrepoint of a new exhibition exhibiting at the V&A in Dundee.
Tartan, the very first key exhibition in Scotland in 30 years to focus only on the legendary textile and pattern, opens this Saturday.
Operating till January 2024, the exhibition presents a radical new appear at a globally recognised layout and delivers jointly quite a few distinctive voices from close to the globe.
Extra than 300 objects illustrating tartan’s universal and enduring appeal will be on show, with examples of manner, architecture, graphic and product or service style, pictures, furnishings, glass and ceramics, film, functionality and art.
The exhibition will highlight the ways tartan shapes identities, embraces custom, expresses rebellion and conjures fantasy. From a checked cloth woven in a number of colours in the Highlands, tartan’s distinctive sample can now be observed on every single surface imaginable.
No other textile pattern has been categorised to these types of a diploma, with extra than 11,000 acknowledged illustrations of tartan recorded throughout the world proving its legendary grids proceed to offer endless alternatives and inspiration.
The exhibition has, for the initial time ever on show, the oldest-known piece of tartan uncovered in Scotland. On loan from the Scottish Tartans Authority, latest scientific study disclosed the tartan specimen observed in a peat lavatory in Glen Affric can be dated to circa 1500-1600.
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A person of the latest exhibits is a handcrafted tartan-lined Xbox Wireless Controller from 2022. The Xbox tartan was developed to rejoice the 20th anniversary of Xbox in Scotland in partnership with Gordon Nicolson Kiltmakers, and weavers Lochcarron of Scotland Est 1892. This style and design is an ground breaking example of weaving, employing only solitary eco-friendly, white and black threads to create a electronic pixelated outcome.
Motivated by Jonathan Faiers’s guide Tartan, the exhibition gathers objects from additional than 100 worldwide loan providers, from the significant vogue of Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen, to newbie footage from 1938 demonstrating weaver Willie Meikle at function on his handloom at house in Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire.
“Tartan is a symbol of Scotland, symbolizing custom, revolt, innovation, legend, ability, and a number of identities, which is at home all over the planet,” explained Leonie Bell, V&A Dundee director. “The exhibition performs tribute to the range and flexibility of tartan, and it rightly marks V&A Dundee’s fifth birthday.”
Tartan at V&A Dundee is sponsored by Arnold Clark and supported by LNER and the V&A Foundation.
