Boston couldn’t get enough of Scottish World Cup fans. The Tartan Army drank the town dry, crowned statues with traffic cones, and bravely whooshed down the “cop slide” in kilts.
The admiration was mutual — and strong enough that Mayor Michelle Wu announced plans to make Boston and Glasgow sister cities. Susan Aitken, leader of the Glasgow City Council, called the move “a fantastic gesture from our friends in Boston.”
Now Boston and the Scots will be further intertwined.
A shopping mall in Glasgow unveiled its own bespoke tartan, the traditional woven fabric used for kilts and shawls, in honor of the city’s “twinning” with Boston. A ceremonial kilt made with the new tartan will be presented to Boston when the two cities celebrate their agreement, Buchanan Galleries said in a statement last week. The event, dubbed “Tartan Day,” is expected to take place in April.
“The presentation will formally celebrate the long and storied history between Glasgow and Boston as two major North Atlantic port cities over the last four hundred years, while recognizing the role Scotland supporters played in bringing the two cities even closer together during the recent FIFA World Cup,” read the statement.
But while the Buchanan Galleries tartan may have the endorsement of Scotland’s largest city, it’s not the only design to honor the Tartan Army’s hosts across the pond.
The same day Buchanan unveiled its design, a group of Scottish soccer fans posted their own Boston-inspired tartan on social media.
“We’ve been working away in the background on this one for a couple of months now, and we are absolutely delighted to finally reveal the samples of our new tartan — New Scotland Massachusetts,” the North East Tartan Army wrote in its post.
You don’t need to be an expert in Scottish highland dress to see that the two tartans don’t look much alike.
The Buchanan Galleries pattern features fields of sapphire blue, with flecks of yellow and green in honor of Fenway Park. The North East tartan, on the other hand, is dark blue with streaks of crimson red, consciously evoking the colors of the Red Sox and New England Patriots.
It may seem as if choosing a tartan is simply a matter of personal preference. Yet, going by Scottish history, it’s anything but. The patterns aren’t just a symbols of the country’s cultural heritage; they’re regulated by the Scottish government, which sets strict requirements as to their naming, design, and even thread count.
Traditional tartans reflect different regional and clan identities, many forged over hundreds of years. Take the centuries-old blood feud between the Campbells and the MacDonalds (famously parodied in an episode of “Mad Men”); even today, it’s hard to imagine a MacDonald, with tartans of dark green, red, and dark blue, ever choosing to wear a Campbell tartan of dark blue and dark green.
But Chris Gibson, who helped draft the North East tartan, said he’s not worried his design will spark another clan war.
Yes, both new designs were conceived at roughly the same time, and both are woven in appreciation of the Tartan Army’s unofficial Massachusetts home.
But Gibson, who serves as the fan group’s vice chair, takes a practical view: “Theirs is a different color, different name.”
In a way, the two designs mirror the unique identities woven into tartans of old. While Glasgow is Scotland’s largest city and economic center, Gibson’s home of Aberdeen is smaller and tucked away on the country’s northern coast.
It’s like going from Boston to Portland, Maine — though for Gibson, who charters buses on days the national team is playing, the trip is considerably longer.
“It’s like three and a half hours to Glasgow,” he said. “Every game is an away game for us. So we’re dedicated fans.”
For the World Cup, Gibson was part of the Tartan Army contingent that traveled to Scotland’s matches in Foxborough, splitting his nine days here between Boston and Providence.
His group also made the trek to Miami for Scotland’s final group stage match, but it became clear there was something missing. South Florida, he said, was “totally different.”
So when the group had the opportunity to go back to Boston before returning to Scotland, they jumped at it.
“When we landed, it was like we were kings or something,” he said. “We were getting rounds of applause for walking in a bar, just because we had our kilts on. We got so much love going back.”
For Scotland’s next round of scheduled games, Gibson won’t be boarding the bus in Aberdeen, but rather a plane — back to Boston. In October, he and his mates plan to watch several of the national team’s games in the UEFA Nations League tournament from here in Boston, and will bring several extra tartans to return the generosity.
“We’ll have, I think, five in order, so we’ll probably have a couple to wear,” he said. “But then, we can maybe give them away as well, like to wear them to hand [them] over. That’s the plan, anyway.”
The Buchanan Galleries design will also make an appearance in Boston next year, when members of the Glasgow City Council celebrate the official sister city ceremony.
A spokesperson for the Glasgow City Council said the Buchanan Galleries tartan was a private endeavor, but added that the city “is happy to support any organisation and business that is seeking to strengthen the Boston/Glasgow relationship, in a positive way.”
“As we look to strengthen the already close ties between Glasgow and Boston, I hope it will become another symbol of the friendship and shared spirit that connects our two cities,” said Bailie Christy Mearns, the council’s depute lord provost.
The Buchanan Galleries tartan has been formally recorded in the Scottish Register of Tartans, while Gibson said his design is in the process of being registered.
But for all of the official requirements, the question of which tartan “officially” represents the Boston-Scotland relationship is a matter of perspective.
“I don’t think we’ll be the only two either,” Gibson said. “I think there will probably be more, you know what I mean.”
The World Cup experience, he suggested, is one Scottish fans won’t soon forget.
“It was quite spectacular what happened,” he said. “It was really hard to put into words.”
Camilo Fonseca can be reached at camilo.fonseca@globe.com. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports.