Outlander, What's the story?

Let’s start with the basics, Outlanderis a drama series which was created based upon the series of novels written by Diana Gabaldon. What inspired Diana to write the novels? Well in 1998, she set out to write a practice novel for herself to learn the process. With experience as a research professor, she felt a historic novel would be the easiest for her to research, bearing in mind that this was before the internet had really taken off, so research was mainly done through books. Diana happened to be watching a rerun of a Doctor Who episode, in which the Doctor met a Scot from the 1740’s, called Jamie McCrimmon and this inspired her lead character, James Fraser. The story beings when Jamie’s “Sassenach” as he affectionately calls her, Claire Randall, an English nurse visits Craigna Dun in 1945, with her husband, Frank, and ends up being transported back in time to 1743, where she meets Jamie and the rest, as they say, is history!

There have been a range of five officially licensed tartans designed to celebrate the Outlander series , as they are official merchandise they can only be sold through select licensed suppliers making these tartans a little harder to get a hold of. Don’t despair though, the range of tartans were all designed with weathered and earth tone colours, to best represent the era depicted within the series. Within our range of over 500 tartans we have around 100 different weathered tartans. The Fraser'sand Mackenzie'sare the leading two families within the series and both have traditional weathered variants. You may even find that your own clan have a weathered tartan, so you can be true to your own heritage but feel part of the Outlander era.

The Fraser Hunting Weathered in particular has risen in popularity in recent years and we are pretty sure Outlander is to answer for this. It’s not just this tartan though; the slightly darker Fraser Hunting Modern has also become extremely popular. Our customer Stephanie was organising a big Outlander themed party back in November and came to us to help dress herself, her husband and their home in Fraser tartan ready for their event.

There are three Outlander Tours on offer, here fact meets fiction, as you are taken to all the places from the series. You will be taken to the streets of our capital city of Edinburgh, where Jamie Fraser, one of the main characters in the series, set up his print shop and promoted the Jacobite rebellion, before it went up in flames. To Fort William to visit Lallybroch (Blackness Castle), Jamie’s family home and to Doune Castle, which fans will instantly recognise as Castle Leoch, home of the MacKenzie Clan.