Masculinities, Colour, Dyeing and the Design of Tweeds 1829–1914

Tweeds were originally designed and worn almost exclusively for menswear. This chapter investigates the impact of gender, landscape, sport, Romanticism and fashion on the development of the newly colourful Scottish woollen designs for menswear, which by the 1830s had become known as tweeds. It explores for the first time how Scottish mill-based tweed producers engaged with new developments in dye chemistry between 1858 and 1914. By so doing, it extends the published literature on artificial dyes, fashion and colour in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which has principally focused on womenswear textiles. Based on material culture and interdisciplinary research, this chapter examines the complex and shifting relationships between colour, design, dyeing techniques, masculinities and fashion in Scottish mill-based tweed production. It challenges the lingering acceptance of the Flugellian idea that nineteenth-century textiles for menswear were exclusively dyed in black, or dark colours that were singularly expressive of austere and ascetic masculine ideals.