KENNETH ROY
Would I have bought it if I had known then what I know now?
The bizarre story of my Harris Tweed jacket
Two weeks ago, in the former prison of Dornoch, never the most secure establishment and now open to the public as a shop called Jail, I bought a Harris Tweed jacket. I am pleased with it. It fits me well. Ever since I bought it, the temperature has been unseasonably high and I have now reverted to a Jeff Banks number. Nevertheless, the day of the Harris Tweed will come. I expect to be never out of it over the winter. But would I have bought it if I had known then what I know now?
As I watched the second episode of BBC4’s absorbing documentary series on Harris Tweed, I realised that my pride and joy – my Harris Tweed jacket – is one of many such jackets manufactured by one Brian Haggas for his Kenneth Mackenzie mill in Stornoway, once the largest manufacturers of their kind in the world. Mr Haggas, a Yorkshireman, is 76, slightly older than the chap who runs the arts in Scotland. Help the Aged must be proud of us. Anyhow, in his advancing years, he decided to buy the Stornoway mill and revolutionise Harris Tweed. I suppose it should be renamed Haggas Tweed.
Brian Haggas – ‘Mr Brian’ as he was known to his works manager, now redundant – made a few elementary mistakes. In his own words: ‘The crofters used to produce over 8,000 different patterns of tweed. I have rationalised that down to four of the best-selling patterns’. If you want any of the remaining 7,996 patterns, don’t bother Mr Haggas. Earlier this year, he was storing in his Yorkshire warehouse 78,000 unsold Harris Tweed jackets. I am delighted to say that, after my purchase in Dornoch, the stock is down to 77,999, possibly fewer. Mr Haggas’s original price was £300. I bought mine for £165.
It was not his fault that he launched at the start of a worldwide recession. Nevertheless, concentrating on the niche market of men’s jackets to the exclusion of all else, and reducing the number of patterns by 95.5%, were errors of Mr Haggas’s making. In March this year, with a glut of jackets and an insufficient supply of Kenneth Roys to buy them, Mr Haggas paid off the workforce and mothballed (so to speak) the plant. For the first time in living memory, Stornoway isn’t making Harris Tweed.
The Harris Tweed Authority – guardian of the orb – made an unimpressive cameo appearance in the BBC4 docu. When it became obvious that Savile Row was still in the market for high-fashion Harris Tweed despite Mr Haggas’s business policies, a woman at the authority checked out a website called Dashing Tweeds and stared doubtfully into her computer screen, wondering aloud whether there could possibly be a market for such strange-looking products.
Another woman, her boss Lorna, was more positive. She took herself off to a trade show in Paris where she announced to camera that ‘what we need is brand-specific, high-end, promotional collateral’. When the interviewer challenged her to explain herself, she said that she meant leaflets. Yesterday I consulted the Harris Tweed Authority’s website and clicked on the section headed ‘News’. The authority had no news to impart and advised me to try again later.
After a year of frustration and non-supply of the precious yarns, a deputation from Savile Row descended on the Western Isles in a mission to track down the 7,996 patterns discarded by Mr Brian. They found them easily enough, in a warehouse by some pier. Gold dust. Everyone was very excited. Dashing Tweeds could dash once more, if only they could find someone to turn out the gear. Lorna (the brand-specific, high-end, promotional collateral specialist) arranged for them to visit one of the two remaining mills. When they arrived, the manager wasn’t around and her deputy had gone ‘to town’. Which town was not divulged. A young man in a t-shirt was left to handle the situation.
At the remaining mill, Brian Wilson is in charge. He too was wearing a t-shirt for his star part in the BBC4 programme; perhaps it, rather than Harris Tweed, is the new uniform of the Hebrides. The former crusading editor of the West Highlands Free Press, subsequently a minister in Tony Blair’s government, is now an ‘energy consultant’. When he is not energy consulting, he writes for the Daily Telegraph, from which platform he is free to express his disdain for Gordon Brown, Scottish devolution, and other pet hates. Recently, he wrote a column strongly critical of the Scottish justice minister’s decision to free the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. From the BBC4 series, we learn that he is also running a tweed mill.
Earlier this week, Mr Wilson’s company was much in the news for its decision to ‘de-Scottishify’ Harris Tweed. A company spokesman was widely quoted as saying; ‘We are not going to promote ourselves as a Scottish company. Megrahi’s release has caused a real problem with American customers…we are quite worried’. The Daily Telegraph was conspicuously impressed. Across its front page it splashed the photograph of a young female model wearing Harris Tweed with an accompanying story announcing the company’s change of policy. I thought at the time that this was a wonderful example of any publicity being good publicity.
Although Mr Wilson was not quoted, I assumed (on the basis of his earlier column in the same newspaper) that he was either a party to the decision or even instrumental in making it. I was mistaken. The following day, Mr Wilson himself corrected the statement made by a colleague, so reliable as it seemed at the time that it had inspired most of the front page of the Daily Telegraph, called it utter nonsense and said the company had received ‘no reaction whatsoever’ from its American customers. How very strange.
Yet, with all this going on and the third damning episode of the BBC4 documentary awaited, the Harris Tweed Authority has no news. I wonder if the rest of business Scotland is conducted in this extraordinary fashion. It could explain a lot.
17.09.09
Issue no 142
MOTHBALLS
The bizarre story of a
Harris Tweed jacket
Kenneth Roy
[click here]
INDIAN SUMMER
IN THE CITY
Photo-essay
Islay McLeod
[click here]
BRASS NECK
It’s about to be sculpted
But whose is it?
Stewart Kenneth Moore
[click here]
TO THE LIFEBOATS
We are indifferent to
over-population
Nick Lyth
[click here]
THE STRANGE CAREER OF DEMOCRACY
Andrew Hook
[click here]
BIN LADEN IS BACK
International diary
Alan Fisher
[click here]
SR WEEK
Catch-up on our Tuesday and Wednesday editions
[click here]
