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How Scottish textiles are turning heads around the world

Harris Tweed Hebrides
Harris Tweed Hebrides

Word association can be a dangerous game.

Mention the north of Scotland to many tourists – and even some locals – and their minds will immediately conjure up images of Highlanders tramping through the heather on wind-swept moors, their kilts and tartan plaids being whipped around in the rain.

Our national dress is an important part of our heritage and is a key way of striking up a conversation, as anyone who’s worn their kilt to a wedding south of the border or while travelling for football or rugby matches overseas will attest. But there’s so much more to the fashion and textiles industry in the north than simply tartan.

Whether it’s Harris tweed or delicate cashmere, designers across the Highlands, the islands and the north-east are drawing on their creativity to produce clothing and accessories that are turning heads around the world. And that popularity means their businesses are thriving.

Simon Cotton, chief executive at cashmere and woollens specialist Johnstons of Elgin, knows all about the overseas success of Scottish fashion.

He’s fresh back from a trip to the US, with Japan the next stop on his itinerary.

It’s hard to put a figure on how much of the company’s turnover come from exports because three-quarters of its £80million revenues are generated by producing garments for private labels. But around two-third of its own-brand products are sold internationally.

That popularity looks set to grow. The first collection to be designed by new creative director Alan Scott – who developed the first menswear collection for American fashion brand Donna Karan and who joined the Scottish company 18 months ago – has just hit the stores.

“His collection is a big step up for us,” explains Mr Cotton. “It’s a very contemporary look, it hangs together as a brand and it’s getting us into new department stores and locations, so we’re really seeing the profile of the brand escalate.

“We have great names that we work with on the private label side of the business, but in terms of the Johnstons brand we’ve really started on a new path now.

“People will still be able to buy their classic cashmere crew-neck jumpers, but we’re also adding that extra element of more contemporary design and interest – and higher-priced items as well if we’re honest to compete with other luxury brands that are out there.”

Part of that move upmarket was the opening in 2015 of a flagship store on New Bond Street in London.

“Sales this year are up over 50% at the store because the international customers are responding to the story about manufacturing provenance and authenticity and craftsmanship,” reveals Mr Cotton.

“Johnstons is a brand with which people have an emotional connectional. We’ve had a very warm reaction to the new products – it tends to be ‘Wow, that’s amazing, I’ll buy it’ or ‘Wow, that’s amazing, it’s a bit expensive for me but isn’t it beautiful?’.

“Whether it’s our private label customers or our customers in the stores, they just want us to do well.

“It’s such a warm feeling – I’ve never come across anything quite like that before. I think it’s partly to do where we based, partly because we’re family-owned and partly because we’re 220 years old and have a team of craftspeople working for us who are really dedicated.”

Inspired by the landscape

For Paulette Brough, the founder of Rarebird Designs on Lewis, it was the beautiful array of colours in the landscape that made her fall in love with the Western Isles.

Having worked in the garment industry in Manchester, she moved to the Outer Hebrides with her husband, Stephen, to renovate a cottage.

She visited a Harris tweed mill for the first time while she was working for a kiltmaking company in Stornoway and was surprised by the colours in the tweed. “The colours look three-dimensional (3D) instead of flat, like they’re jumping out of the material,” Ms Brough explains.

Colour is one factor that sets Harris tweed apart from other materials. The wool is dyed before it is spun – as opposed to the finished spun yarn being dyed – and so colours can be blended together to create a broad range of intricate shades and hues.

Ms Brough began her work with Harris tweed by making a handbag for herself in 2006.

The response from admirers was so great that the following year she decided to start a business making handbags to sell at fairs.

Initially, she started selling them at country shows on the mainland, but demand grew very quickly and soon Ms Brough realised she needed to start working on the business full-time, with Stephen leaving his job as a lorry driver to help too.

The business has grown to employ three members of staff, along with freelancers during busy periods, and now Rarebird has studios and shops in Stornoway and Carloway.

The range of products on offer has grown too. As well as bags, Ms Brough makes neckwear, gloves and corsages, small gifts and homewares.

While she may work with one of the most traditional materials available, her designs are far from old-fashioned. Ms Brough uses Liberty prints and hand-dyed Batiks in her designs to complement the Harris tweed and also handmakes ceramic buttons to use in her work.

As well as selling her products through her own website, Ms Brough’s wares are stocked by more than 90 shops, including those run by the British Museum and the National Trust for Scotland. Overseas clients include customers in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the US.

Japan is a particularly important market, with Ms Brough travelling to several British fairs held in large department stores to promote her products to Japanese consumers. She’s now busy working on plans to expand the range of products made by her business.

London calling

Colours are also a source of inspiration for Sam Goates – but not just those that are found in nature.

Ms Goates also draws on the shades and hues that feature on the fishing boats that surround her workshop at Buckie harbour.

“It sounds like a clique, but I think I was born to do this,” says Ms Goates, who runs Woven in the Bone. She produces artisan cloth that’s used by Savile Row tailors down in London, including Anderson & Sheppard, Davies & Son and Richard Anderson.

After training at the Glasgow School of Art, Ms Goates travelled to Australia to visit her sister. “What started off as a holiday turned into a 20-year career,” she laughs.

The move was well-timed. While Scottish textile mills were closing down, Ms Goates was able to gain decades of experience working with fine merino textiles.

When she returned to Scotland in 2007, her experience stood her in good stead to set up her own business.

Her first project when she came home was to develop training for Harris tweed weavers.

“That was my introduction to the old Hattersley looms, which allowed people to produce commercial cloth at home,” she explains. “As soon as I saw the looms, I knew that was the right thing for me to use too.”

It’s not just Savile Row tailors that have been taken with Ms Goates’ materials. In the spring, a group of ten people from Portland in Oregon in the US will visit the north-East for a “tweed and whisky geek tour”.

After visiting Johnstons of Elgin in the morning, they’ll come to Woven in the Bone in the afternoon, where Ms Goates is working on jacket-length fabric that they will keep as part of the price of their tour. The connection came about through Instagram, illustrating the importance of social media to fashion and textile businesses working in the north.

Island home

Tweed isn’t the only game in town either. After working for fashion houses in New York, designer Kirsteen Stewart returned home to Orkney and opened her studio in 2009, producing vibrant print designs that combine bold graphics and vivid colours.

“My first part-time job was in a design studio on Orkney with Ingrid Tait of Tait & Style,” Ms Stewart explains. “I worked with a retail business called Longship too and realised design was what I wanted to do in the future.

“Ingrid and her mother, Ola, were very inspiring, along with jewellery designer Sheila Fleet, all strong, female-led businesses.

“It was always my intention to start my own business when I returned to Orkney – there are fewer opportunities in design and fashion, so I created my own job and business.”

Her eponymous main brand produces women’s clothing and accessories, while her Mixter Maxter knitwear range was launched after a Japanese buyer asked if her prints would transfer to knitwear.

“Two very different brands, but with the same inspiration, which comes from the world around me,” says Ms Stewart, who is also an ambassador for Women’s Enterprise Scotland.

The next steps for Stewart include working with London-based interior designer Ella Doran on a joint collection with her eponymous womenswear brand and collaborating with Age Concern Scotland on a project with Mixter Maxter.

“We’re asking people to donate time to make pompoms, which we’ll then turn into pompom hats,” she says.