The standard highland dress for men is a kilt. This is a tartan that is often based on the families heritage and ancestry to Scotland. Tartan is a pattern composed of criss crossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours. Tartan’s originated in woven wool, but now they are made in many other materials. Tartan is especially associated with Scotland. Scottish kilts almost always have tartan patterns. Tartan is one of the patterns known as plaid in NorthAmerica, but in Scotland, a plaid is a tartan material slung over the shoulder and fasted with a metal clasp.

The kilt socks or kilt hose is also sn necessary part of the highland dress with a historically patterned turn over top. A stretch ribbed sock with a plain non cushioned sole making them perfect for wearing with a common-or-garden or dress shoe. Colors range all the way from Natural for more formal or evening wear, and dark green and hot black for day wear. Tartan is formed with swapping bands of coloured (pre-dyed) threads woven as both warp and weft at right angles to each other. The weft is woven in a straightforward twill, 2 over – 2 under the warp, advancing one thread each pass. This forms detectable diagonal lines where different colours cross, which give the appearance of new colors mixed from the first ones. The resulting blocks of colour repeat vertically and horizontally in a specific pattern of squares and lines commonly known as a sett..

The English word tartan is derived from the French tiretain. This French word is probably derived from the verb tirer in connection with woven fabric (in contrast to knitted fabric) .[note 1] Today tartan typically makes reference to coloured patterns, though originally a tartan did not need to be made up of any pattern in any way. As late as the 1830s tartan was occasionally described as “plain coloured … Without pattern”.[5] Patterned material from the Gaelic talking Scottish Highlands was called breacan, meaning many colours. Over time the meanings of tartan and breacan were mixed to explain certain type of pattern on a specific kind of material. The pattern of a tartan is known as a sett. The sett is made of a series of woven threads which cross at right angles.

Today tartan might be generally associated with Scotland; nevertheless the earliest proof of tartan is located far afield from the British Isles. According to the textile historian E. J. W. Barber, the Hallstatt culture of Central Europe, which is linked with traditional Celtic populations and prospered between 400 BC to 100 BC, produced tartan-like textiles. A number of them were lately discovered , exceptionally preserved, in Salzburg, Austria.[4] Textile analysis of fabric from Indo-European Tocharian graves in Western China has also shown it to be like that of the Iron Age Hallstatt culture. Tartan-like leggings were discovered on the “Cherchen Man”, a 3,000 year old mum found in the Taklamakan Desert in western China (see Tarim mummies).

Similar finds have been discovered in central Europe and Scandinavia.The earliest documented tartan in The UK, called the “Falkirk” tartan, dates from the 3rd century Anno Domini. It was uncovered at Falkirk in Stirlingshire, Scotland, about 400 metres north-west of the Antonine Wall. The fragment was stuffed into the mouth of an earthenware pot containing nearly 2,000 Roman coins. The Falkirk tartan has a straightforward check design, of natural light and dark wool. Early kinds of tartan like this are generally thought to have been invented in pre-Roman times, and would've been popular among the inhabitants of the north Roman provinces[14][15] as well as in other parts of Northerly Europe such as Jutland, where the same pattern was prevalent.

Geoffery Moffet writes articles on Scottish and English heritage for The Mohair Sock Company. This tract investigates the importance of kilt hose as an element of the conventional highland dress.