231027 Collection Digital Cover 1 - Flipbook - Page 66
“Vivienne Westwood’s groundbreaking AW87 collection,
marking her break away from punk to employ a more
polished and tailored look, saw her models take to the
catwalk in Harris Tweed.”
Most recently, in 2016, Harris Tweed was granted its own Coat of Arms
by Lord Lyon, King of Arms. The Harris Tweed Orb is now officially
recognised as being the industry’s coat of arms, not just imbuing the
Harris Tweed name with the associated prestige, but also adding
a further layer of protection to the industry against imitations. Indeed,
these necessary protections have been required as the popularity
of Harris Tweed has grown, due to copycats attempting to cash
in by creating their own (inferior) counterfeits.
Away from the sad reality of duplication inflicting not just Harris
Tweed as a cottage industry but also the fashion industry as a whole,
perhaps the best indication of a material’s mettle is its recognition and
appreciation by the fashion world at large. It’s therefore unsurprising
that several of the more distinguished fashion houses have employed
Harris Tweed in their collections. Vivienne Westwood’s groundbreaking
AW87 collection, marking her break away from punk to employ a more
polished and tailored look, saw her models take to the catwalk in Harris
Tweed. Westwood would later comment that her inspiration came
from a girl she saw once dressed in Harris Tweed, who impressed the
designer completely with her cool composure and knack for knowing
exactly how to pull off a tweed jacket. Westwood continued to use Harris
Tweed in her collections, but she was by no means the only one to do so.
Other designers to have embraced Harris Tweed and featured it in their
collections include the late Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel, Margaret Howell,
Paul Smith and the late, great Alexander McQueen.
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It’s not just clothing designers with a love for Harris Tweed
either. Nike and Manolo Blahnik have both used the material for
footwear, showcasing the versatility and desirability and, one might
argue – especially so in Nike’s case – the appeal to all ages, of this
remarkable cloth.
A true testament of the legacy of Harris Tweed, however, is its transition
into popular culture. As early as 1949, the film Whisky Galore! sees
a group of Scottish islanders who have run out of whisky, determined
to save the cache they uncover aboard a shipwreck, which featured
characters in tweed, most likely Harris Tweed. A more modern
representation is the popular Robert Langdon books by Dan Brown,
immortalised in film with Tom Hanks in the leading role, which saw
the symbologist hero described as wearing a Harris Tweed jacket,
giving credence to his work as a university professor, and marking
him as a man of distinction (and one with apparent good taste, to boot).
Ben Affleck’s CIA agent Tony Mendez went a similar route in the 2012
film Argo, although the actor’s decision to don a Harris Tweed jacket
was less to do with giving visual clues to his character and more because
the real-life inspiration for Mendez revealed that Harris Tweed was
almost something of a uniform for US spies during the Cold War.
