Check in for the new season’s fashion

It’s testament indeed to the versatility and sheer wearability of checks, and especially of tartans, that they never lose their striking appeal within fashion.

Endlessly reinvented, updated, rediscovered and revisited, woollen fabrics woven into tartans, plaids and checks come into their own every autumn, when they are called upon to bring warmth and texture to our winter wardrobe.

Tartans and checks provide classic appeal, yes, but yet they are always able to bring about an contemporary feel, too. They never date – and that’s quite a feat.

Tartan has a chequered history, however. The earliest tartan in Britain, the Falkirk tartan, dates from the third century AD, and there is evidence that tartans were popular in the northern Roman provinces and parts of Northern Europe. It was not until the early 18th century that tartan came to be used in Scotland as a clan distinguishing cloth, and so associated with the Jacobite cause. The 1746 Dress Act banned the non-regimental wearing of tartan. A century later, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert popularised and romanticised tartan when they bought Balmoral in 1848 and refurbished in it in what we now think of as Scottish baronial splendour. So it was that tartan lost its rebellious edge to became a symbol of the staid establishment.

Fast forward to the late 1970s when disenchanted punk youth reappropriated tartan, long associated with authority and gentility, and reinvented it for mini-kilts, skinny trousers, patches and trims, accompanied by rips, studs and chains, to express their discontent with the establishment.

There is a punk revival theme going on in fashion this season, which sees checks and tartans take on a rebellious edge once again.

Look out for kilts and coats, especially the cocoon coat with soft shoulders, and also jackets that introduce tartan and checks on sleeves.

Don’t be afraid to mix your checks, teaming perhaps a bright blue and white laundry check top with a tartan or houndstooth straight skirt.

Look out for check tunic and shift dresses and also womanly Fifties’ style skirt suits.

Colours are strong but not garish, with rich blues, rusty orange, black, greys and soft pinks blending to perfection.

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