( CNN ) -- Plaid feels right for this fall , when the wooly weave of Scottish tartans is likely to show up on store shelves . It appeared in the fall runway collections of designers like Marc Jacobs , Michael Kors , Louis Vuitton and Tory Burch . It 's no surprise : From Chanel 's famous tweeds to Alexander McQueen 's voluminous gowns to Tommy Hilfiger 's preppy sportswear , the interplay of colors and crossing lines in a tartan weave allow designers to communicate a range of emotions . Think of the outrageous punk statements from Vivienne Westwood or the staid , aristocratic panache from Ralph Lauren . `` You can expect to see plaid on just about everything , '' said Jasmine Snow , the accessories editor for Seventeen Magazine . While stores are always filled with plaid in the fall , she said , this year , coats , long pencil skirts , shoes and already otherwise-printed shirts are getting the plaid treatment for crowds of all ages . `` Red and black buffalo plaids are the hottest right now , '' she said , and teens especially will be looking for unique plaid combinations for the once-again trendy grunge look . But then again , plaid has been on trend for a long , long time . Plaid 's long history . In fact , it 's been around since at least 1500 BC , according Patrice George , an assistant professor of textile development for the Fashion Institute of Technology . That 's the age of the oldest surviving piece of plaid in the world . `` As soon as people learned to weave , they figured out that if you put different colored yarns in the two directions the yarn went , you got an interesting crossing ( pattern ) , '' George said . `` Color combinations became associated with power and status . In the 16th and 17th centuries , the Scottish highlanders really developed this into a system , and that 's where we get the tartan concept . '' Tartan is a plaid woven in wool , designed in Scotland that identifies different clans , aspects of Highland society and political allegiance . Centuries ago , Scottish men used yards of tartan to wrap around their bodies , keeping them warm on the windy mountainsides . That piece of woven wool was called a pledd -- it 's where the word plaid comes from , George said . Modern Americans often use `` plaid '' and `` tartan '' interchangeably , she said , although `` plaid '' is also the word for a check weave that 's not an official tartan . But fashion designers and plaid enthusiasts have Queen Victoria to thank for its popularity , said Patricia Campbell Warner , a historian and University of Massachusetts Amherst professor emerita . Because Queen Victoria was so enamored of Scotland and Scottish tradition , she adopted tartan in her own clothing , and made it quite formal , Warner said . The bold blacks , reds , blues and greens used in many clan tartans today come from the Victorian era , she said , when chemical dyes became widely available . Before then , tartans were made from naturally dyed wool , which is drab in comparison . `` What Queen Victoria did , people copied , '' Warner said . `` Tartan went into high fashion with women 's dresses from the middle of the 19th century , on . '' Fashion has always followed the `` trickle-down theory , '' Warner said : When the highest echelon of any society does something , everyone else follows . And nobody copied Queen Victoria 's penchant for plaid better than the Americans , Warner said . An American tradition ? Americans are known to look to Europe for fashion inspiration -- it 's an old habit . In colonial times , Americans were well connected with their families in Britain . It took only six weeks to get to the colonies by boat , Warner said , and the latest fashions and fabrics were often sent to American women by their relatives . As the United States and Canada grew , Americans of Celtic heritage helped to establish tartan 's place on the continent . During the late 1880s , one Scottish immigrant trader was known to share his clan 's tartan with Native Americans in exchange for buffalo hides , said George of the Fashion Institute of Technology . The pattern of red and black check ( which became a favorite of lumberjacks , cowboys and hunters ) was a big hit , she said , and soon became known as `` buffalo plaid . '' The Pendleton Company in Oregon was also responsible for the homogenization of tartan and plaid in the United States , she said . Around the turn of the last century , the wool weaving mill served people living in the West , who mainly wore plaid shirts and leather pants during the frontier development of the 1880s and '90s . Pendleton `` started weaving traditional Scottish plaids but then they also started making up their own , '' George said , using `` more American '' colors like browns , golds and greens . Pendleton plaids went on to became associated with genteel country lifestyles -- say , a weekend in Vermont or a gentlemanly ranch in Montana . The very idea of a tartan has also left footprint on North America . Many U.S. states , branches of the military , universities and institutions have their own tartan . National Tartan Day , a holiday dedicated to Scottish-Americans , is celebrated on April 6 . You can make your own tartan on the Web and it will be internationally recognized as such . There 's even a museum dedicated entirely to tartan in Franklin , North Carolina . Jim Akins , who proudly claims Scottish heritage on both sides of his family , spends his retirement volunteering at the museum . He enjoys pointing out examples of his family tartans to visitors . `` People see me in a kilt and they automatically think , 'OK , he 's Scottish , ' but when this voice came out , '' he said , of his thick Southern accent , `` you could see the surprise on people 's faces . '' He regularly wears a kilt to church or even shopping with his wife . `` I think it 's great that people would wear tartan , regardless of whether it 's a shirt or a kilt , '' he said . `` It 's the most comfortable garment that you 'll ever wear . ''
Many fashion houses incorporated it into recent fall and winter collections . The earliest plaids have been around since at least 1500 BC . Queen Victoria helped to popularize the look of Scottish clothing .