Harris Tweed
Tweed is a traditional,
woven, heavy woollen outerwear fabric first made in Scotland.
The name comes from tweel a Scottish word for twill and
not the river Tweed as often thought. It is the fabric that
was worn by many of the early Antarctic explorers and also the
mountaineers who first attempted to scale peaks in the Alps
and Himalayas.
While it has now
been replaced by modern high-tech materials for extreme situations,
it is still a beautiful and high performing, comfortable material,
much used and highly coveted.
Tweed that is
made in the Scottish Outer Hebridean islands of Lewis, Harris,
Uist and Barra and called Harris Tweed, is widely acknowledged
as being the finest available. In its homeland, this revered
material is known in the original Gaelic as
Clò Mór, "The
big cloth."
Today Harris Tweed
is manufactured on the islands, still often woven in the homes
of the islanders on their own looms.
The Harris Tweed
Act, was passed by the British Parliament to give international
protection to this unique international industry. The tweed
is made in accordance with strictly controlled processes that
combine traditional skills with modern methods.
Finished rolls of
cloth that pass the strict criteria are submitted to the independent
Harris Tweed examiner, who will certify that it conforms to
the legal definition. If all is well, then the tweed will stamped
with the Orb and Cross logo of the Harris Tweed Authority and
the famous and exclusive "ORB" garment labels will be issued.
The Certification
Mark was originally granted in 1909, registered in 1910 and
stamping of the rolls of tweed began in 1911. Originally the
cloth was made from wool that came exclusively from the islands
where it was produced, but demand soon outstripped the supply
from this source and in June 1934 amended regulations were made:
"Harris Tweed
means a tweed made from pure virgin wool produced in Scotland,
spun, dyed and finished in Outer Hebrides and hand woven by
the islanders at their own homes in the Islands of Lewis , Harris,
Uist, Barra and their several purtenances and all known as the
Outer Hebrides".
Historical stuff
 | Originally, the tweed was
manufactured totally from resources found on the
islands. Before synthetic dyes became commonly
available, the cloth was dyed using a wide range
of vegetable pigments. In particular from lichens
such as the grey lichen Stone Parmelia -
known as Crotal in Gaelic which gave a reddish-brown
colour. This had to be painstakingly scraped from
stones around the islands. |
|
| Dyes must be fixed in the fabric
using a mordant to stop them washing out. Before
chemical mordants became commonly commercially available,
the usual substance used was urine. A container
was kept in the shed for the whole family to collect
and store it. - Don't worry, these days, modern
mordant agents are used! |
|
| Hundreds of years ago, urine
from red-haired boys however used to be kept separate,
this was used to quench sword blades as they were
made. It was thought to make the blade particularly
strong. |
|
| The current status of Harris
Tweed is owed to Lady Dunmore, widow of the late
Earl of Dunmore who in 1846 had the weavers in Harris
copy the Murray tartan. She was so impressed with
the result that she dedicated much of her time and
activity to telling her friends about the cloth
and improving the production process. |
|
Highland
Tweed Sport Coat 
