Needles - Arrow Jacket

Lately a lot of products have surfaced which features Harris Tweed. This is definitely one of the better so far. Needles is a Japanese brand, which is part of the Nepenthes company, which Engineered Garments is also a part of. Needles is almost entirely made in Japan, and I find it very hard to place in terms of style, as they produce some very funky pieces sometimes, but if you find some of their lookbooks (especially the older ones), you'll get a sense of the myriads of styles they're able to mix.

This jacket is called the Arrow jacket. It's made in Japan of Harris Tweed fabric. Other than that it features deerskin patches on the elbows and deerskin accents of the cuffs and pockets.

Beauty & Youth - Harris Tweed Blazer

The coming of fall and winter allows you to wear a lot of layers, good sturdy coats, corduroy and finally your tweed blazers- preferably Harris Tweed blazers.

Lately a lot of companies have been using Harris Tweed fabrics in many ways and often I don't think it really makes sense. But when I saw this "coverall" blazer from Beauty & Youth it totally made sense. This type of fun blazer is something, which is obviously inspired by American leisure wear, but again it's totally Japanese. They have a way of mixing fabrics, colours and textures so effortlessly. It's definitely not for the faint-hearted, but it looks damn good.

Unfortunately it's made in Vietnam, which is a deal breaker for me. But it's still worth mentioning for its inspirational value - just like all products at Hickoree's.

Making a Sporran in Leather

I can't tell you how many times, I've watched this video. Not in order to make a sporran, but to pick up on some of the techniques, that he uses. Every time I watch it I pick up something new. First of all I know, that I've got to buy a head knife at some point and learn firstly how to sharpen it and then how to use it correctly without cutting off any limbs.

I hope, that you can get something out of this video, even if you don't work with leather.

Luckily someone uploaded the video to Vimeo, which makes sharing a lot easier. The original can be found here.

Shopping From Epaulet NY

Mike Kuhle from Epaulet is a very visionary man. Calling his shop just a shop might actually be an insult, as it is turning into more of brand with all the private label or collaborative stuff, that Epaulet is putting out. But now that I think of it, Mike is actually doing things the old school way. He listens to his customers and provides the best possible products within a price range, that doesn't exclude that many. He uses his platform to get exclusive make-ups and special editions. Something that other shops could really learn from. I often return to this shop for inspiration, and if it was more accessible in the EU, I'm sure, I would be buying from Epaulet a lot.

The key words are quality, modern fit, updated classics and exclusive make-ups. 

Today I was just browsing - and thinking about placing a huge order - but instead I decided to put together  an outfit and just stick to dreaming about buying new stuff.

"When Harris Tweed Isn’t" by James Taylor

There are many pleasures associated with buying vintage clothing. There’s thrill of the hunt as you enter a new thrift store or trade show, wondering what treasures (if any) await among the musty drabness, the tingle of excitement when a ‘phone call or email comes in from someone who knows I collect vintage clothing, asking if I’d like to look at the stuff Grandad left in his attic before it heads off to the thrift store or landfill. There’s the pleasure in finding a long-unloved tweed overcoat, and spending time making the minor repairs to bring it back to use, keeping someone warm. And there’s the speculative pleasure involved in wondering how something got where it did—I still have no idea how that mint-condition chocolate-brown Poole topcoat ended up in the back of a Church thrift store in small town Ohio. And even if something is beyond rescue—a much-stained 1960s sports jacket in bleeding Madras, or a moth-eaten dinner jacket, custom made in 1956—there’s still the simple pleasure of imagining what events these clothes might have been worn at, and what manner of man had them made.

And these speculative and avaricious pleasures are joined by another type of pleasure entirely—the pleasure of the education that a mysterious label can sometimes bring.

   

In my own case this started with the label on a Harris tweed jacket. If you’re reading this blog you’ll probably be familiar with both Harris tweed and its classic trademark “Orb” emblem, which looks like this:

But in one jacket I found the label looked like this:

This was weird. This was clearly marked as Harris tweed, marked as handwoven, and came from the right area of Scotland. But it wasn’t an Orb. It was a Shield. And the name of the company behind the trademark was weird, too—The Independent Harris Tweed Producers, not the Harris Tweed Authority.

What’s going on? Is this Harris Tweed, or not?

A hint to the answer came from a 1958 edition of The Glasgow Herald, which reported that a newly-formed company, The Independent Harris Tweed Producers, were challenging the Harris Tweed Authority’s monopoly on calling their cloth Harris tweed. Why? Because there was a strong demand for Harris tweed in the American market, and the IHTP wanted in. And, yes, you can guess what was driving the demand then—not just post-war American prosperity, but the increasingly popular (then as now) Ivy League look, in which Harris tweed was a mainstay!

There were differences between the Shield tweed of the IHTP and the orb tweed of the HTA. The latter was only from Scottish wool, while the newcomers used wool from elsewhere the latter was spun, dyed, and finished in the Outer Hebrides only, whereas the newcomers would spin, finish, and dye anywhere in Scotland, and the Orb tweed was to be spun in crofters’ own homes, whereas the Shield tweed could be factory-made.

So, what happened? Lawsuits, filed by both sides--in 1961 by the Shields and 1962 by the Orbs. (Clearly, America was influencing more than just tweed production!)

And what happened? Well, take a look around your closet—do you see any Shield labels there, and, if you do, are they recent? The case went to the Edinburgh High Court, and was decided against the Shield faction, with Lord Hunter holding that for a cloth to be Harris Tweed it had to conform to the definition of the Board of Trade, namely that for a cloth to be Harris Tweed it must be  “a tweed, hand spun, hand woven and finished by hand in the Outer Hebrides, with ‘Made in Harris’ or ‘Made in Lewis’ or ‘Made in Uist’ etc. added as appropriate’.” The Shields’ tweed didn’t meet this definition, and so was not Harris Tweed….. And hence no more Shield Harris Tweed labels would legally be produced.

So, if, while searching through vintage tweeds, you find something labeled Harris tweed with a Shield label, rather than an Orb, you’ve found a rare relic of a almost-forgotten but very heated dispute concerning the real nature of this canonical fabric.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes Harris Tweed isn’t! 

Nitty Gritty x Mackintosh

This is something else. I like it.

"At Nitty Gritty we strongly believe that an army green fishtail parka never goes out of fashion, especially if its handmade by people from the United Kingdom with decades of experience. For this season we decided to make our own touch on Mackintosh's coated cotton Kerrera coat with mohair lined hood. So, in order not to ruin the perfectly simple outside of the parka, we pimped it with a removable leopard print wool liner. What else could you possibly ask for? At least we are fully satisfied."