Jane Maxwell, Duchess of Gordon with her son George Duncan, by George Romney, 1778. The duchess is often credited as being the fi rst woman to introduce silk tartan into the wardrobes of London high society
‘Miss Rose persuaded her to order a gay-coloured, flimsy plaid silk, which she assured her was quite the latest fashion in London, and which Molly thought would please her father’s Scotch blood. But when he saw the scrap which she had brought home as a pattern, he cried out that the plaid belonged to no clan in existence, and that Molly ought to have known this by instinct. It was too late to change it, however, for Miss Rose had promised to cut the dress out as soon as Molly had left her shop’.
Published as a serial in the Cornhill Magazine between 1864 and 1866, Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters, An Every-Day Story follows the fortunes of Molly Gibson, a shy young woman living in a provincial town in England during the 1830s. At the prospect of visiting the house of a venerable country squire and having nothing suitable to wear for the occasion, Molly is persuaded by her Scottish father to purchase a new gown from a local milliner. Unsure of what to get, Molly allows the dressmaker to override her natural reserve and opts for something exceedingly gaudy: a silk tartan gown, which she regrets purchasing every single time she is forced to wear it.