Created to protect Scottish islanders from their chilly climate, Harris Tweed has endured hard times to become the epitome of classy dressing. Gustav Temple follows the warp and weft of its tale

For those with no interest in clothes whatsoever, tweed is something they have a vague idea of, perhaps as something their grandfather used to wear. For those with a modicum of interest, tweed may feature in their wardrobe in some ironic way, perhaps as a tote bag. But for those with a bigger interest in clothes, when they wear tweed items, they know they’re wearing something so strongly connected with history, heritage and the countryside that they’re practically time travelling. Those who go one step further and wear Harris Tweed may even feel they’re wearing the Champagne of British clothing. And in a sense, they are.

While a few other clothing fabrics have official “authorities” to guarantee their quality, Harris Tweed has the distinction of being protected by Act of Parliament. Every item made from Harris Tweed has been assessed by the Harris Tweed Authority before entering the marketplace. The authentication label, a rather natty orb with some stitching on the front and a Maltese cross on top, guarantees that the cloth was made under the following conditions: “Harris Tweed cloth must be handwoven by the islanders of Lewis, Harris, Uist and Barra at their homes in the Outer Hebrides, finished in the Outer Hebrides, and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides.” The 1993 Harris Tweed Act passed this rule into law, bringing into existence the Harris Tweed Authority, replacing the Harris Tweed Association originally set up in 1909.

OK, but how does this help the popinjay sauntering about in rustic tweeds, who doesn’t wear his natty clothing purely to keep some bureaucratic association in Scotland happy? It works like this. When you put on a jacket with that red stitched orb beaming from the inside breast pocket, you don’t even need to think about the quality the fabric is made from. You simply know it’s the very best you can get.

And before anyone starts moaning about rich fat cats and their expensive clothes, a decent Harris Tweed jacket can easily be picked up in a vintage or charity shop for as little as £25. If anything, the older the better, for tweed, unlike most other woollen fabrics, actually improves with age. This is because tweed is so organic as to be virtually alive on your back. The wool it’s made from contains lashings of lanolin, a greasy substance that protects sheep from the heavy rains of Scotland (and other countries). Wool is also a natural insulator, breathable, biodegradable, resilient and elastic, as well as being fire- and odour-resistant.

But wait a minute – why does my Harris Tweed jacket emanate a faintly tangy odour when I’ve been outside in the rain and it’s drying out in a warm room? There are two possible reasons for this, dear reader, and neither of them are very palatable. The first is that, in the early 20th century, the bolts of tweed went through a process called “waulking” before being woven by the crofters. This process, designed to soften the cloth and fix the dye in it, involved the tweed being rolled and pummelled on wooden tables, usually by women. Sometimes they used urine, kept in a bucket outside the crofter’s cottage, to speed up this process. The other reason your ancient tweed jacket might whiff slightly of wee is that it was worn virtually to the grave by its doddery old original owner, though this is more common in tweed trousers.

So the process that led to the fabulous Harris Tweed jacket you’re wearing – or should be wearing – began many moons ago in a tiny crofter’s cottage on an island in the Outer Hebrides, and is the same today. The wool is taken directly from the sheep, prepared and dyed in a local mill, then spun into yarn that is sent out to the weavers, or crofters, for the cloth to be woven. The weaver adds the weft to the warp, turning the yarn into tweed, and returns the cloth to the mill to be washed, checked and stamped with the Orb and distributed around the world. No urine comes anywhere near it these days.

The entire process is about as far from mass-produced as you can get. Harris Tweed is effectively a home-made cloth that contains the essence of the islands in which it is made. What makes this even more surprising, in the 21st century, is that the very bolts of fabric originating in these tiny stone cottages end up on fashion catwalks in Paris, in the fabled bolts of cloth in Savile Row tailors, and even in Primark. Yes, you read that right – Primark once purveyed a line of Harris Tweed jacket, when such a garment became famous for 15 minutes after Matt Smith wore one as the Doctor in Doctor Who. A scandal erupted – scooped by The Chap, unsurprisingly – when it was discovered that the jacket, although bearing the Harris Tweed Orb, had not been manufactured in Britain but China. It is surely not a coincidence that the Doctor is no longer played by Matt Smith.

A more sympathetic endorsement of Harris Tweed had come earlier, in the 1980s, when Vivienne Westwood paid the isles a visit in search of cloth. Her 1987/88 collection featured acres of Harris Tweed, subverted in the punk designer’s inimitable way. “I have taken the vocabulary of royalty and traditional British symbols,” said Westwood at the time, “and used it to my advantage.”

Westwood’s collection was the first time Harris Tweed had been seen outside the windows of Savile Row tailors or on the shoulders of the aristocracy. By cutting the cloth into chic couture garments and requesting the boldest, most colourful bolts, she turned it into an expression of the ultimate British style, soon copied by countless other fashion houses. There were even Harris Tweed bondage trousers available in her King’s Road boutique Seditionaries – later to become the launch pad for Malcolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols.

But how did science fiction doctors and punk rockers come to wear clothing made on remote islands in the Outer Hebrides with names that sound like blends of whisky? The high quality of the weaving by the islanders of Lewis, Harris, Uist and Barra had long been recognised, but until the mid-19th century the only market for their fine cloth was in the local community. The heavy tweed, with its rich colours reflecting the diverse hues of the landscape – misty blues and greys from sea and sky, mossy greens, peaty browns, creams from the white sand beaches, and the yellows and purples of the gorse and heather – was only ever worn by the islanders to protect them from the biting Hebridean winds, and to cut a dash in the local hostelries on a Friday night.

In 1846, the widow of the landowner of the Isle of Harris, Lady Dunmore, had the Dunmore clan tartan replicated by Harris crofters in tweed. Her wealthy friends outside Scotland were so impressed that they wanted some of this “Harris tweed” for themselves. As a result, sales of the island cloth were established with merchants across Scotland and England. The Harris Tweed Association Limited was formed in 1909 and the Orb and Maltese cross created to define it. Unwittingly, Lady Dunmore had done for the Outer Hebrides what producers of Champagne had done for their region in France – created a denomination of origin.

Although the best-known image of this ancient fabric is perhaps that of Edward VIII striding about the golf course in a hairy ginger Harris Tweed jacket and plus fours, tweed cap jauntily angled over his treacherous face, Harris Tweed has adorned the shoulders of a much wider spectrum of the populace. It appears in countless films, stage plays and television series – and not always on the sort of fusty old Cambridge dons associated with it (step forward Michael Caine in Educating Rita).

Tweed on Film
The Quiet Man (1952) John Wayne’s Irish tweed sports jacket rang the changes in the actor’s roles, moving him smoothly from cowboy to country squire with ease. Wayne and co-star Maureen O’Hara were both fitted by local tweed merchants O’Máille in Galway City, who continue to produce excellent Irish tweeds (omaille.com).
Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965) Sean Connery sports a brown barleycorn tweed two-button hacking jacket, tailored by Anthony Sinclair, in both films. As well as being a move away from 007’s more familiar dark lounge suit, the jacket was also a nod to James Bond’s and Connery’s Scottish heritage. No future Bond wore tweed.
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Costume designer Theadora Van Runkle transformed small-time thirties hoodlum Clyde Barrow into a fashion icon by putting Warren Beatty into a three-piece suit in brown herringbone tweed – ignoring its total unsuitability for a sweltering Texan day in an un-air-conditioned getaway car.
Bullitt (1968) Steve McQueen earned his “King of Cool” credentials as the stylish Lieutenant Frank Bullitt in an unlikely brown herringbone tweed shooting jacket, navy knit rollneck jumper, charcoal flannel trousers and brown suede crepe-soled desert boots from Hutton.
Dirty Harry (1971) A grey tweed jacket does not spring to mind when recalling Clint Eastwood aiming his .44 Magnum at a villain and enquiring as to whether or not he feels lucky – “Well, do ya, punk?” – but that was what he was wearing as Inspector Harry Callahan. His status as an all-American lawman during the Nixon era was clarified by a red and blue repp tie.

Gustav Temple is editor of The Chap.

This article is from Idler #107.

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