While not as traditional as one might think, Scottish tartan and kilts have been the dress wear of choice in Scotland for over 200 years. The garments actually date back to Roman times, but it is only the Scots that can claim it as national dress nowadays. It really came into prominence in the latter half of the 18th century onwards, as the dress of the many distinguished Highland regiments that fought for the British Empire.

In fact the wearing of tartan had been forbidden by Government decree for four decades after the battle of Culloden (marking the end of the Jacobite rebellion) in 1746, and it was only the romantic novels of Sir Walter Scott and their royal appropriation by both George IV and Victoria that saw it re-established in the 19th century.

Seeing its last active service in the First World War, the tartan kilt has for nearly 100 years become a resplendent badge of tradition, with each clan and family having either its own tartan or a variant on it. There are also different hues of each tartan - more muted for hunting than the bright dress colourings of formal wear.

Chisholms offers a complete service - both for purchase and hiring - not only to ensure you get the right tartan but also the full range of traditional accoutrements, the kilt pin, the sporran, belts, buckles, shirts and jackets as well as the ornamental, but still deadly, dirk (long dagger) and smaller, more exoctically named sgian dubhs - pronounced "skee-an doo" (a knife secured in its scabbard in one's sock).