Uniform worn by British Caledonian Airways Stewardess, c. 1986-1988.

Caledonian Airways was a Scottish airline founded in 1961. Their air stewardess uniform was designed using adapted Scottish Clan Tartans, with 9 different tartans and a number of colour options to choose from. The available tartans were designed by Kinloch Anderson and consisted of: ‘Graham of Monteith’, ‘Mackellar’, ‘Red MacDuff’, ‘MacInnes’, ‘Hunting MacRae’, ‘Kennedy’, ‘Hunting Ogilvie’, ‘Dress Black Watch’, or ‘MacNab’.

This expanded to 13 options in 1970, when the airline merged with British United Airways to become British Caledonian Airways. One of the new tartans was referred to as ‘Princess Mary’ tartan, and it came with six colour options. This uniform is an example of the ‘rose’ colourway of this tartan. Whilst Caledonian Airways designated the name ‘Princess Mary’ to this tartan, it is actually a Stewart tartan.

Caledonian’s iconic tartan uniforms remained in use through another takeover in the late 1980s by British Airways, until the airline was sold for the last time at the turn of the millennium.