Outlander

Jamie Fraser wears two different tartans in Outlander. When we meet him, he is wearing the Mackenzie tartan. His mother was born a Mackenzie, and he is hiding with her family.

The Mackenzie tartan is green, blue, white, and red. Later in the show, he wears the Fraser tartan. Jamie is a laird in the Fraser clan. The Fraser tartan is mostly red with thick green and blue stripes and thin white stripes.

There are many tartans seen throughout the show. The most prominent are the tartans for Clan Mackenzie and Clan Fraser. Jamie Fraser, the show’s hero, wears the tartan for Clan Mackenzie at the beginning of the show. Later, when he can return to his home, he wears Clan Fraser tartan.

Both Clan Fraser and Clan Mackenzie are real clans in Scotland. In fact, Clan Fraser divided into two clans in the fourteenth century. There was the Lowland Frasers of Philorth and the Frasers of Lovat, of which Jamie was a member.

Clan Mackenzie has been around since the 11th century. The Mackenzies did in fact feud for centuries with Clan MacDonald. Clan Mackenzie was one of the most powerful clans in Scotland.

Outlander takes place in different periods as time travel is the base of the show and book. It takes place in the mid-1900s, just after WWII through the 1960s. Outlander also takes place in the mid to late 1700s in Scotland, France, Jamaica, and America, depending on the season. The bulk of Outlander takes place between the 1740s and the 1760s.

Jamie Fraser was not a real person. He was based on a real Fraser who survived the Battle of Culloden. Just like the show, a group of Jacobites hid in a barn after the battle. The English spared a single Fraser.

The Frasers are a real clan in Scotland and did participate in the battle. Jamie Fraser is meant to represent the times rather than a real person.

Outlander is thoroughly a Scottish show. However, as the seasons' progress, the characters do journey around the world. Our hero and heroine spend part of a season in France before traveling to Jamaica and, ultimately, to America.

Outlander refers to Claire Randall Fraser who is an outsider living in Scotland in the first season.

Outlander is filmed in a variety of places throughout Scotland. A few of the central locations include Inverness, which is filmed in a town called Falkland just north of Edinburgh. Castle Leoch scenes are filmed at Doune Castle outside of Glasgow; Lallybroch is set at modern-day Midhope Castle.

The breathtaking opening scenes are filmed in Glencoe in the Highlands. As the seasons' progress, there are filming locations worldwide.

Outlander has a unique task in trying to create wardrobes for two distinct periods, both from the 1940s to the 1960s and the 1740s to the 1760s. The clothes are beautiful and fantastic, but they are not the most accurate, unfortunately.

However, the designers specifically tried to make Claire's clothes inaccurate as she was a 20th-century woman thrown into the 18th century. The tartan colors also likely would have been brighter.

Craigh na Dun, the stone circle where Claire travels through time, is fictional. These scenes were filmed near Perth at Kinloch Rannoch. The stones are painted styrofoam. The filming location had specific requirements for size, look, and view, making it easier to create the stone circle.

The stones were likely inspired by the Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis, however. There is a stone circle called Clava Cairns near Inverness near the Culloden battlefield.

Broch Tuarach, also known as Lallybroch, is the home of Jamie Fraser. It is situated between Fraser and Mackenize land, as Jamie's mother was a Mackenzie. Broch Tuarach means "north-facing tower" in Gaelic. Lallybroch, a nickname for the home, means "lazy tower."

Claire wonders how a tower faces north. Jamie's answer is the cylindrical tower has a door that faces north, and the tower is slightly north-leaning.