Bringing together makers, academics, and designers, the "Interweaving Threads - Scotland and Norway through Dress" project strengthens shared expertise while opening new conversations around how traditional dress is understood, made, and preserved today. 

Led by art historian, Dr Kitty Corbet Milward, this project is in partnership with the Norwegian Institute for Bunad and Folk Costume, with support from the Edinburgh Kiltmakers Academy, the National Museums of Scotland, Custom Lane and the V&A Dundee. 

Through talks, events, and hands-on engagement, the project explores dress as a reflection of identity and place. Coincidentally, it arrives around 25 years after Bunader, Crowns and Roses, the touring exhibition of Norwegian folk dress, including the bunad, that opened at the National Museum of Scotland. 

Where that earlier exhibition focused on showcasing the garments themselves, this new project dives deeper - questioning the significance of dress and craftsmanship in a contemporary world shaped by fast fashion, sustainability concerns, AI, globalisation, shifting ideas of gender, and cultural diversity.

The Norwegian bunad is not a single garment, but a family of regional folk dresses, each deeply rooted in local history. Typically associated with women, the bunad is renowned for its intricacy and symbolism. A traditional bunad is composed of a bodice, skirt, shirt, apron, and often a distinctive headdress, all brought together with richly detailed embroidery and silver jewellery known as sølje.

Every element of the bunad communicates meaning. Colours, patterns, and materials reflect regional practices, historic trade routes, farming traditions, and international influences. The cut of a bodice or the style of embroidery can immediately identify where a bunad comes from - with about 450 bunads in Norway to this date.

Passed down through generations, bunads are treasured heirlooms: valuable, time-intensive to make, and worn with pride at ceremonies such as christenings, weddings, and national celebrations - including Norway's Constitution day on May 17th.

In many ways, Scottish Highland Dress echoes these same themes as the bunad, with the kilt being the key, recognisable element. Traditionally handmade from woven wool, the kilt is both a practical garment and a powerful symbol of identity, history, and belonging. Closely associated with men, although now becoming increasingly inclusive, it carries layers of meaning through its tartan and accompanying elements such as the type of sporran and jacket.

Tartan itself acts as a visual language, tied to place, family, and story, while the making of a kilt demands skill, precision, and time. Like the bunad, kilts are often treasured heirlooms, worn for significant life events and handed down through generations. And, like the bunad, the kilt continues to evolve, shaped by changes in production, fashion, and global demand - raising similar questions about authenticity, craftsmanship, and the preservation of traditional skills in a modern world.

Both the Scottish kilt and the Norwegian bunad are regional, rooted in story, connected to landscape, and the people in it. They can carry messages that may be obvious, subtly encoded, or only known to the designer. With over 15,000 official designs on the tartan registry, tartan design opens up another world of possibilities for people to develop their own story and meaning. Both the bunad and the kilt exemplify skilled craftsmanship and the value in garments that are handed down, repaired, and preserved over time.

Yet there are notable differences in how these garments have evolved and how they are understood today. Traditional Scottish dress is closely bound up with histories of conflict, clan identity, and the military. From the Jacobite uprisings to later regimental use, Highland dress has been shaped by moments of suppression, adaptation, and revival, giving it a charged political and symbolic weight.

In the modern day, Scottish highlandwear is continually reinterpreted and given new meaning by those who wear and make it. Tartan and the kilt move fluidly between expressions of heritage, rebellion, and contemporary style, appearing both within global fashion and personal creative practice. One example is designer Owen Edward Snaith, whose work uses tartan as a way to explore identity, memory, and belonging, drawing on his experience of growing up queer in a small rural fishing community on the east coast of Scotland. His approach shows how tradition can take new meaning, whilst still respecting the heritage and the craft.

Rather than being strongly tied to military history or conflict, the Norwegian bunad is more closely associated with nation‑building, rural life, and civic identity, particularly following Norway’s independence in the early twentieth century. Bunads function as markers of place, continuity, and belonging, worn primarily at ceremonial and national moments rather than adapted into mainstream fashion. As a result, bunads remain comparatively less commercialised and, while instantly recognisable, the depth of their regional meaning and craftsmanship is often little understood beyond Scandinavia.

However, this trajectory has also meant that national dress in Norway has been fiercely protected, with the Bunad and Folk Costume Council, a gorvernment-appointed organisation, responsible for protecting, researching, and promoting the Norwegian bunad tradition. While some bunad imitations have been known to be produced overseas, in places such as China or Eastern Europe, the vast majority of bunads (legitimate ones) are produced in Norway using traditional techniques and materials - most often locally sourced wool and linen, coloured with natural dyes drawn from Norwegian flowers.

Whilst Scotland shares this deep pride in its national dress, the kilt has become increasingly vulnerable to a market saturated with machine-made imitations and low-quality materials. This is why we, Gordon Nicolson Kiltmakers, are so committed to raising the standard of kiltmaking and safeguarding a craft now officially recognised as endangered. Together, these contrasts open up a wider conversation: that heritage is not only what we wear, but how it is made.

Members from the Edinburgh Kiltmakers Academy were delighted to take part in the project’s two-day event at Custom Lane in Edinburgh, which brought Scottish and Norwegian traditions into close conversation. Displays of Scottish national dress sat alongside beautifully intricate bunads, immediately highlighting both parallels and contrasts.

The event featured a series of engaging talks from experts and makers. Norwegian-born, Pernille Olstad, represented the EKA and GNK, sharing insights into the evolution of highland dress, from the great kilt to the modern sewn kilt, sharing similarities with the bunad, and a mutual appreciated for heritage between Scotland and Norway. She also demonstrated using her own bunad to show how the garment is assembled.

Presentations on traditional Norwegian dress by Camilla Rossing, Maja Musum’s exhibition Skakke Folkedrakter, Kirsty Hassard’s tartan display from V&A Dundee, and the work of Alex Marshall Clark all spoke to the depth of this cultural exchange. Discussions also addressed a shared concern: the gradual loss of skills and craftsmanship in both countries as production becomes increasingly detached from place and people.

This is where we take immense pride in our Edinburgh Kiltmakers Academy. Founded in 2016, the Academy was created to protect and celebrate traditional hand‑sewn kiltmaking - a craft officially recognised as an endangered craft.

At a time when machine‑made and mass‑produced kilts are common, the EKA focuses on passing on the full craft, sharing the skills, stories, and care that make hand‑crafted kilts so important. Through its courses, workshops, and supportive community, the academy ensures that the art of kiltmaking continues to thrive, nurturing a new generation of makers who understand not just how to make a kilt, but why it matters.

The next chapter of this project is the Interweaving Residency. Designed for makers, designers, researchers, and practitioners working with textiles and dress, the residency offers time, space, and international exchange to explore shared heritage, contemporary practice, and future-facing ideas. Through research-led making, dialogue, and collaboration across Scotland and Norway, the programme seeks to deepen understanding of traditional dress while responding thoughtfully to the challenges facing craft today.

This residency represents a rare opportunity to engage directly with historic garments, living traditions, and fellow specialists across borders - strengthening skills, forging new connections, and contributing to an evolving conversation around identity, sustainability, and craftsmanship. 

Applications are now open, and we warmly encourage those working in textile and dress practices to explore the opportunity and consider taking part.