Clan Wallace: Know your tartans

The most common and widely used is the Wallace Modern or Wallace Red Modern tartan, a vibrant scarlet, black and yellow tartan dating back to 1842. There is also an ancient version where the red is more orangey than scarlet. Is "orangey" a word? Well you know what I mean, not a true orange nor a true red, something in between.

The Late Wallace Clan Chief Ian Francis Wallace wore the green version of the tartan, the Wallace Hunting or Green. Designed with more muted colours for camouflage during hunting expeditions you can choose from the Wallace Hunting Modern with navy blue and bottle green and a yellow stripe, or the softer, mossy green of the Wallace Hunting Ancient tartan. If you are wondering just why there are ancient and modern versions of a tartan we have devoted a whole separate blog post to this subject.

When we come to Dress variations of the Wallace tartan there are two to consider. The Wallace Dress Tartan, like it's red counterpart dates back to 1842 and is traditionally used for evening, formal or special occasion wear. It features only two colours; black and white and is actually the exact same as MacFarlane Black and White Modern Tartan.

Dress tartans always contain lots of white, the sett remains the same but the main colour is changed to white (or occasionally yellow but that is a whole other story). Wallace also has a dancers tartan called the Wallace Blue Dress which you tend to only see worn by the Highland Dancers.

There are a few other Wallace tartans registered but these tend to be by companies or individuals and are not recognised by the Clan itself. For example there is a Wallace Memorial Centenary Tartan which was designed by Christine MacLeod who was born in the village of Ederslie where William Wallace himself was born. Christine had a passion for the history of this national hero and his fight for freedom and joined The Society of William Wallace to indulge her interest.

The Wallace Modern Tartan is one of the most popular tartans in the world, and we have our very own Wallace brushed wool tartan scarf for sale, here on ScotlandShop.