Tartan trews and trousers: what trews are and how they are worn

Trews are tartan trousers in the sense used in Highland dress. The Scottish National Dictionary defines them as a close-fitting pair of tartan trousers, the legs extended to cover the feet, formerly worn by Highlanders, and adds that the word is also used for modern tartan trousers worn by some Scottish regiments. Wikipedia’s article on Highland dress lists a kilt or trews as the tartan garment at the base of men’s dress, so trews are the usual alternative to the kilt rather than a lesser one. This page covers trews: their age, the two cuts, the military use and what retailers suggest wearing with them. Ordinary tartan or plaid trousers sold as fashion are a separate matter, and the sources read here say little about them (see the note at the end).

Old trews and modern trews

The bias cut is the detail that most separates trews from trousers tailored in the ordinary way. The dictionary says cutting on the bias gave an elastic effect, and Wikipedia says it let the cloth stretch to the body. Modern trews on the straight grain do not have that stretch; the sources read here do not say how makers fit them instead.

How old they are

Wikipedia says written records of tartan trews date to 1538. It also reports a surviving fragment of a Roman-era statue, a figure of Caracalla completed in 217 AD, showing a Pictish prisoner in tartan trews, and says trews “appear to date to at least as early as Roman Britain”. That is a reading of one fragment that the article attributes to news coverage, and we did not check it against an archaeological source. The same article says folklore holds that trews were common in the Highlands from the 16th to 18th centuries, which it states as tradition (“it is said”) rather than evidence.

The dictionary’s earliest citation is from 1703, Martin Martin’s description of the Western Islands: “Many of the People wear Trowis, some of them very fine Woven”. Its latest, from the Daily Record in 2002, shows the word still in use for the modern garment: a man who is “not a big fan of wearing the kilt” and chooses tartan trews.

The Dress Act

After Culloden the Dress Act of 1746 restricted Highland dress. The History of Parliament Trust says the clansmen were to be stripped of their “kilts, trews and plaids”, that some Highland regiments kept their dress as part of their uniforms, and that the proscription was overturned in 1782. Wikipedia words the exemption for trews specifically: the ban on men and boys wearing the “truis” lasted outside military service until 1782. The Trust’s article gives a range from fines to transportation and says enforcement was delayed by several years, without fine amounts. For the full account of the Act see what is a kilt.

Military trews

Trews are one of the places where the military use is better documented than the civilian one. Wikipedia’s account, which carries its own citation warning, is:

• Until 2006, lowland regiments usually wore military trews in No 1, mess and full dress, while Highland regiments usually wore kilts for those orders.
• The 91st wore trews at Walcheren in 1809 and the 93rd in the War of 1812, including at New Orleans.
• After George IV’s visit in 1822, the 72nd adopted trews for all duties.
• The Royal Regiment of Scotland, formed in 2006, “continues to wear trews in certain limited orders of dress”.

Which tartan a given unit wears is a matter for the regiment and is not covered by the sources read.

What outfitters suggest

For civilian wear the sources are thinner. Wikipedia’s Highland dress article gives day and evening rules only for the kilt and says nothing on when trews are right, so any guidance below is one retailer’s view, not a convention checked against a clan society or tartan authority. Humes Outfitters, in a 2018 Burns Supper style guide, recommends a kilt or trews “often in a dress tartan”, meaning a formal version with more white in it; suggests that people without clan ties choose a universal tartan, naming Royal Stewart or Black Watch; pairs trews for formal wear with a Prince Charlie or longer-line Highland jacket, white shirt and tie or bow tie; and says they can be dressed down with a shirt and leather boots. For what a Prince Charlie jacket and the other parts of the outfit are, see how to wear a kilt. On who may wear which tartan, see who can wear which tartan.

Tartan plus-fours

Wikipedia’s trews article also covers tartan plus-fours, which it says extend about 4 inches below the knee and are often worn with argyle socks, and which the Prince of Wales popularised in the United States during a 1924 visit. It gives this for golf dress. We have not traced the claim to a primary source.