In life, you’re never supposed to be more than 2m away from a spider. In London you’re always within 3m of a rat. And, at the moment, it also feels as if you’re never more than 6m away from a man’s tartan shirt. Durable, comfortable, flattering and functional, they’re everywhere. On cool kids and dads, men who wear them to work and men who wear them to work a look. Girls are at it, too, wearing them outsized and cinched with a belt over leggings.
“It’s a cloth of duality,” says Jonathan Faiers, senior lecturer in cultural studies at London’s Central St Martins art and fashion college and author of Tartan: Textiles that Changed the World. “Its history is in the establishment — in clansmanship, the aristocracy and military forces, but because it’s become the uniform of rugged masculinity it’s also revisited in an ironic way — by subcultures such as grunge, punk and gay clones.”
Tartan’s current ubiquity is a reaction to the over-groomed metrosexual, and the dandified look of skinny suit jackets and tailored shirts that dominated menswear in the last decade. It’s a look widely adopted by New York hipsters in recent years, and the rise of indie and nu-folk music also fanned the tartan flame. From Fleet Foxes’ nerd chic to the rock aesthetic of Kings of Leon, every cool band wears checks at sound check.
Unsurprisingly, many of the second-hand shirts worn in the UK hail from the US. “Check and plaid is worn by a huge percentage of that population at the moment,” says Angie Ibrahim, area manager of vintage store Rokit, “hence the increased level of shirts we stock.” Pendleton and Harris Tweed are now the labels to search for by men who care about quality and history. Though if you like designer you can look at the spring/summer collections by Givenchy and Tom Ford, both of which feature tartan shirts.
But their true home right now is the high street.
UK high street store Topman reports tartan shirt sales are up 49 percent from last year and up 540 percent from two years ago. Currently the store sells the equivalent of four every minute. “They are the simplest way of injecting a stab of color and pattern to any wardrobe with the minimum of ‘fashion’ thought,” explains
Topman design director Gordon Richardson. “And when a guy is happy with an item he sticks with it. Men are more likely to buy an updated version of something they feel comfortable with rather than experiment.”
The male love of tartan seems universal. “Men who don’t wear patterns or color wear tartan,” says Jeffrey Banks, co-author of Tartan: Romancing the Plaid and executive board member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. “And that’s international. The Japanese are crazy about it, all architects have a plaid shirt, and every chic Milanese doctor has a tartan scarf.”
Faiers thinks that plaid’s unique dual history in establishment and anti-establishment means it still represents more than a style trend. “You could argue that in a recession climate, tartan signals a back-to-basics feel. You can put a sociological spin on it, and there aren’t many fabrics you can do that with.”
Banks also explored the psychology of plaid for his book, which was partly inspired by a surge in the number of New Yorkers wearing tartan in the months following 9/11 (reported at the time in the New York Times). “We wanted to explore the historical, psychological and emotional views of tartan; we spoke to psychiatrists, theologians, everyone.” So with all that wealth of knowledge, does it ever annoy him that so many tartan lovers today have little idea of the cloth’s history? “Not at all. You just have to let them enjoy it. People love tartan because it’s beautiful.”
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
Toward the outside edge of Taichung City, in Wufeng District (霧峰去), sits a sprawling collection of single-story buildings with tiled roofs belonging to the Wufeng Lin (霧峰林家) family, who rose to prominence through success in military, commercial, and artistic endeavors in the 19th century. Most of these buildings have brick walls and tiled roofs in the traditional reddish-brown color, but in the middle is one incongruous property with bright white walls and a black tiled roof: Yipu Garden (頤圃). Purists may scoff at the Japanese-style exterior and its radical departure from the Fujianese architectural style of the surrounding buildings. However, the property
RSS