At one point a few years ago, every shirt I owned was tartan. The lumberjack shirt was the urban, metrosexual version of the polo shirt, and I owned about 20 of them. It’s the kind of garment that says, “Hey guys, at the weekends I like to whittle and play the lute.” Unlike a real fashion-fashion trend, what it doesn’t semaphore is: “I will probably dump you as soon as we get to the party or at the first sight of more interesting people.” It’s a look that says “sturdy and reliable”, as seen on fathers at the weekend, baristas and members of Fleet Foxes.
The dominance of the tartan army shows how versatile the look has become. We no longer look like people on our way to a Bay City Rollers fan club AGM: 40 years after Vivienne Westwood first aligned the cosy pattern with punk, it has become a staple of mainstream dressing, with just enough edge to make it neither staid nor boring.
There were some wilderness years: who knew that, come the dawn of the new millennium, the grunge look would morph from Kurt “I love an unbuttoned plaid shirt” Cobain to the cheap Sk8ter Boi garms popularised by Avril Lavigne? Tartan was replaced by a strict dress code of three-quarter-length trousers and tiny, tiny ties.
These days, tartan is back where it should be: the reliable men’s fashion perennial. Sometimes, it has to be said, at the very, very back of your wardrobe, a fashion perennial that might be mistaken for an old blanket, but a perennial all the same. Still, it was a surprise to see tartan leap back into catwalk consciousness at various menswear shows earlier this year, namely those of fashion enfant terrible Charles Jeffrey Loverboy. Maybe it could be cool-cool again?
Or maybe not. Here, I am wearing a tartan shirt so soft and lovely to the touch, I might be wearing a cloud. In sports casual trousers and T-shirt, I am so reminded of my disgusting at-home clothes that I’m perilously close to whipping out a family-size bag of crisps and going in on them. When your look is this comfortable, who cares if it’s cool?
• Priya wears shirt, £49, and T-shirt, £22, both by Reebok, from urbanoutfitters.com. Trousers, £165, by Hartford, from mrporter.com. Trainers, £90, asics.com.
Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Samantha Cooper at Carol Hayes Management
