News & Press

Tweed firm scoop top fashion award

Press – STV News

02.11.09

Harris Tweed Hebrides has received a top award at a prestigious fashion event in Glasgow.

The business, which has already been named Textile Brand of the Year at the 2009 Scottish Fashion Awards, received this year’s ‘Outstanding Contribution to Style’ award at the Scottish Style Awards.

The Awards, hosted by Sophie Ellis Bextor, were held at Glasgow’s Old Fruitmarket with an audience of 750 VIPs.

The two-year-old company from the west side of Lewis is building a reputation as a luxury brand of choice – providing the fabrics for Glasgow’s first five-star hotel, and even giving US First Lady Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, wife of France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy, a wrap made from a specially produced tweed.

The business is going from strength to strength, providing work for around 100 weavers and 40 employees at their mill in Shawbost.

In the fashion industry, Harris Tweed is a key feature in Autumn and Winter collections, but is rarely seen in Spring/Summer ranges.

This often results in seasonal peaks and troughs for the industry, with a lack of steady employment for weavers.

But by marketing tweed as a more versatile fabric used not only for clothing but in soft furnishings and interiors, Harris Tweed Hebrides hopes to provide work for self-employed weavers all year round.