I recently received an email from someone with NC Museum of History in Raleigh,
NC, enquiring as to the correct tartan for North Carolina. She writes:WHAT IS THE OFFICIAL CAROLINA TARTAN?
I recently received an email from someone with NC Museum of History in Raleigh,
NC, enquiring as to the correct tartan for North Carolina. She writes:
I am on a quest for the "official" Carolina Tartan. We had ties and such made several years ago with what was thought to be the official tartan. It was predominately green and red, with white, yellow, and maybe black. Someone from International Tartans dropped some samples by with a totally different pattern, mainly blue and red. Apparently it is called the North Carolina tartan and is registered. Can you help us out?
This reminded me of a telephone call I received some time ago from a gentleman asking about the tartan for North Carolina. I began to tell him about the Carolina tartan, designed in 1981 by Peter MacDonald. He replied, "No, I know about the Carolina tartan. There is a new tartan, just for North Carolina, and since you are a tartan museum in NC, I thought you would know about it." So would I! So I did some investigating, and found the source of the confusion.
An Edinburgh man named David McGill, whose company is called International Tartans, has designed several tartans named for districts and states, and is promoting them on his web site, including a North Carolina and South Carolina tartan. These tartans were each commissioned by private residents of the respective states, but neither has ever received any official recognition. They should just be considered fashion tartans, nothing more. The "North Carolina tartan" was designed by him in 2002, and the "South Carolina tartan" in 2003.
The official tartan for both of these states was designed in 1981 by Peter MacDonald, and based upon a Stewart tartan. It’s called the Carolina tartan, and has been accepted as the official state tartan of both North Carolina and South Carolina by appropriate acts of legislature. North Carolina adopted it in 1991, and South Carolina adopted it in 2002. It is pictured here, in cloth woven by Peter MacDonald himself.
Our friend at the NC Museum of History was misled when she was
told that this new North Carolina tartan was "registered" and therefore
official. While it has been recorded with such bodies as the
Scottish Tartans Authority and the Scottish Tartans World Register, this conveys
no official status. It is just a record that the tartan exists. The STA,
in fact, have it recorded as a Fashion tartan. In their notes, they state,
“Until such time as it is accepted [by the State Legislature] it is classified
as ‘Fashion’ rather than ‘District.’”
LINKS to information on the CAROLINA TARTAN: