Handsome Plaid: Tartan, Highland Dress and Fashioning Scottish Identity
21st June 2023
Location: Mount Stuart
Handsome Plaid: Tartan, Highland Dress and Fashioning Scottish Identity

In this special two-part lecture, join Dr. Rosie Waine and Hannah Bradshaw for an exploration of tartan as an iconic symbol, textile and pattern, and discover how Highland dress became an integral part of Scottish identity.
As a living tradition, Highland dress is deeply rooted in the material history of Scotland. The romanticised ideal of the Scottish Highlands which took hold around the turn of the 19th century remains with us to the present day. For many, Highland dress and tartan cloth have come to represent powerful symbols of the nation. In Dr. Waine's 30 minute talk, she will explore how Highland costume became interwoven with the presentation of Scottish culture during the early 1800s.
Afterwards, join Hannah Bradshaw - postgraduate student from the University of Glasgow’s Dress and Textile Histories programme - as she presents her exciting new research on the surviving Royal Stewart tartan cloak of the 2nd Marquess of Bute c.1819, and the corresponding (and much beloved) portrait by Sir Henry Raeburn.


Biographies
Dr. Rosie Waine is a fashion and textile historian, specialising in 18th and 19th century dress. She is the author of the book ‘Highland Style: Fashioning Highland dress, c.1745-1845’, which is based on four years of collections research at National Museums Scotland funded by the William Grant Foundation. Her work at NMS has centred around properly documenting and examining the evolution of Highland dress during what some people consider its “Golden Age” of development.
Hannah Bradshaw is a current postgraduate student at the University of Glasgow studying the MLitt in Dress and Textile Histories. She graduated from the University of Sydney in 2019 with First Class Honours in Art History and was awarded the University Medal for her thesis on masculinity and the iconography of Prince Albert. Hannah has published her work in the journal 'Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion'. Her research interests include masculinity and nineteenth-century dress and visual culture.
Tickets
Supper Club tickets still to be released - check back soon!
