AN EXHIBITION exploring tartan and its journey through the African Diaspora hopes to reveal hidden history of the well-known fabric.

The exhibition, Tartan: Its Journey Through the African Diaspora, is Costume Initiative of the African Diaspora’s (CIAD) first major exhibition and will uncover the colourful historic voyage of tartan cloth and trace its travels from Scotland through the African Diaspora by way of India.

Tartan: Its Journey through the African Diaspora, held in London this month, looks at the social and cultural influence, and significance the distinctive pattern has played on traditional wear, culture and on custom in the Caribbean, the US, and East and South Africa - from the 1740s to present day.

Scotland has a long historical and cultural relationship with tartan. The project will uncover the history of how tartan came to Scotland, and the contrast between the use and social significance of madras fabric in the Caribbean and the US. 

Madras cloth was created in India and then sold to people in the Caribbean, the fabric has been used in the development of many islands’ national dress.

Teleica Kirkland, CIAD’s creative director, has been researching the history of Caribbean dress for the last three years. She tells Life & Style: “The link between tartan and madras is a hidden history that I’m sure people will find really interesting.”

She continues: “The history is there, if you look in the right places, but there are fragments missing.

“This exhibition puts together one of the puzzle pieces of the African Diaspora development. I hope it gives a little understanding of how things became.”

Kirkland adds: “This is not about looking at what Scotland gave to the Caribbean. It’s about them saying ‘look what we did with what was left behind.’”

The project will also explore the emergence of tartans in Kenya in the form of shukas - the blankets worn by the Maasai - and discover the relationship to tartan that has developed amongst the Zulu’s in South Africa.