Opening on 1st April 2023 until 14th January 2024, the most significant exhibition of tartan in Scotland for 30 years is big news for our Clan.
by Philip Beddows
Seanachaidh to the Chief and Clan Historian
Written for publication in ‘The Clan MacBean Register’, Spring 2023
Those who have been following the pages of the Clan’s Facebook Group will have picked up news of the launch of Scotland’s, and perhaps the world’s most significant and magnificent tartan exhibition. Anyone already in Scotland and the rest of the UK or making a trip there from April 2023 through to the 14th January 2024 might wish to add a visit to the V&A Dundee to their schedule.
The exhibition tells the story of tartan from its earliest history in the Highlands to its use in high fashion and its arrival on the Moon. Tartan has featured in so many aspects of life and design and as Trisha Telep wrote in ‘The Mammoth Book of Scottish Romance’:
“Any self-respecting Scot knows that a good tartan is the solution to everything: it tells you where you are, where you belong, who your friends and family are.”
Whether one shares Telep’s view or not, it is an undeniable fact that tartan has never fallen out of fashion. Seen most famously worn as kilts, it is to be found on all manner of clothing including socks and hats, shoes, scarves and even underwear; the helmet of one of the world’s top Formula One racing car drivers, household décor, architecture, aeroplane tails, coats for pets, a classical guitar, and became the iconic ‘must have’ fashion for punk rockers and much more. The V&A Dundee’s ‘Tartan’ exhibition features all these, including tartan worn by ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, Scotland’s well-known 1970s pop rock band ‘the Bay City Rollers’, and items created by world-famous fashion designers Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, and Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri.
But for the Clan MacBean, the most important of the 300+ objects exhibited is a piece from the MacBean tartan taken to the Moon by our celebrated clansman, the late Captain Alan LaVern Bean, who became the fourth person to land on the Moon and the first to take tartan into space. He carried it on him when he piloted Apollo 12’s lunar module ‘Intrepid’ onto the Moon’s ‘Sea of Storms’ on 11th November 1969 and became the fourth person to walk on the surface of the Moon. It is great news that some of the MacBean Moon Tartan is gaining such high-profile visibility so soon after the Alan LaVern Bean Memorial was unveiled and dedicated at the McBain Memorial Park, just before the inauguration there of Richard McBain of McBain as our 23rd Hereditary Chief.
Captain Alan LaVern Bean, on one of the plaques on the memorial dedicated to him at the McBain Memorial Park above Dores and Loch Ness, Saturday 6th August 2022.
As the Clan’s President Pete McIllwain said in his address, read out at the Dedication by Scott McElvain: apparently when Alan Bean was sourcing the tartan from some weavers in Scotland, to take with him to the Moon, they asked him what he wanted it for. He told them he would be taking it to the Moon, and they asked if he was going to be claiming the Moon for Scotland – he quickly replied “no”, he was going to claim it for Clan MacBean! Alan had a quick wit.
A piece of the MacBean tartan that Captain Alan Bean carried to the Moon and back on Apollo 12, signed by him. In the collection of the Clan MacBean Association.
Another item that may be of special interest to everyone is a large piece of tartan discovered in Glen Affric, preserved in a peat bog – only 40 miles from Kinchyle and the McBain Memorial Park. This piece of material is the oldest tartan ever found in Scotland.
Peter MacDonald with the 16th century specimen of the Glen Affric tartan – Scotland’s oldest tartan, on loan to the V&A Dundee from The Scottish Tartans Authority. Photo credit: Alan Richardson.
Peter MacDonald, Head of Research and Collections at The Scottish Tartans Authority, and Scotland’s leading expert on tartan – a good friend of the clan who advised on the design of our new MacBean Hunting tartan, has been intricately involved in researching this Glen Affric tartan. Detailed scientific examination of the piece of tartan revealed that it is dated from c.1500 to 1600 AD. Although ‘the Falkirk tartan’ from the 3rd century AD is older, it is a simple check pattern and not therefore a genuine ‘tartan’. As Peter MacDonald is quoted as saying: “The tartan has several colours with multiple stripes of different sizes, and so it corresponds to what people would think of as a true tartan” and in respect of what we can determine about its story “Although we can theorise about the Glen Affric tartan, it’s important that we don’t construct history around it. Although Clan Chisholm controlled that area, we cannot attribute the tartan to them as we don’t know who owned it”.
If you get the chance, don’t miss the V&A Dundee’s wonderful ‘Tartan’ exhibition. It’s closer than the Moon, so not really far to travel to!
The V&A Dundee’s ‘Tartan’ exhibition ‘A radical new look at one of the world’s best-known textiles’ runs for seven months, from Saturday 1st April 2023 to Sunday 14th January 2024.
Written for publication in ‘The Clan MacBean Register’, Spring 2023.
‘Tartan’ – the V&A Dundee’s fantastic new exhibition – Philip Beddows, April 2023
First published in The Register, Spring–Summer 2023.