DC Dalgliesh

[Troglodyte]

Oh no! Perish the thought! I spend far too much of my time talking tartans and kilts already! The thought of being trapped in a bus for mile after mile after .......... talking about even more tartans and kilts, really does not appeal!!

I don't think we'd qualify to be part of the coach-tour party anyway. Too close to home and all that.

But we could wave and cheer them on their way as they passed by.

[Jock Scot]

They might be wanting a brace of interpreters? Well....speaking for one posibility, basic rustic English AND, there is a local tartan expert who might have a spare second or two available?

[OC Richard]

There was a time when the Highland dress outfitters on the Royal Mile and around about were as good as anywhere...

My first visit to Edinburgh was in 1986 and there were a number of legit Highland Dress shops at that time.

Each subsequent visit has seen the tatting-down of the Royal Mile. Last August the only legit shop was Geoffrey Tailor, a couple people on computer and phone doing online sales and phoned-in hires in a first-storey storage-closet sort of place, not like a normal retail establishment.

For 'real' Highand dress and 'proper' outfitters, the visitor needs to get out into the wilds - like Stirling for Hendersons, or Pitlochry where MacNaughtons (shopping as it should be - since 1835 is their claim) still gives the buyer an experience of the good old days.

Maccalls and Alex Scott in Aberdeen, or Houstons in Paisley (not to mention all the others spread across Scotland) are genuine outfitters in the old style, with on-site tailoring, but none of these are really convenient for those basing themselves in Edinburgh. The kiltmakers in Grantown-on-Spey or Tarland and other remote or rural locations need the trade much more than those on the Royal Mile.

Thanks for that list of must-see shops!

My wife and I did visit MacNaughtons in Pitlochry in 1986 and had a lovely tea with Blair MacNaughton and his wife.

Our other attempts failed- we arrived in Inverness only to discover the city shut down for a Bank Holiday, and found Blairgowrie also shuttered, except for the pub, due to us arriving at 5pm.

I had wanted to visit Piob Mhor but that was not to be. (They had acquired Nicoll Brothers three years earlier, and were at the height of their pipemaking era.)

Perhaps we need to organise a coach-tour holiday for keen kilties, doing the 'tartan trail' like people do with the whisky trail. Any takers..?

Yes! Count me in! A kilt-centric Rabbie's Tours!

(BTW here's my kilt-shop experiences in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Kilmarnock August 2024)

https://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/...-2024-a-98897/

[jsrnephdoc]

My first visit to Edinburgh was in 1986 and there were a number of legit Highland Dress shops at that time.

Each subsequent visit has seen the tatting-down of the Royal Mile. Last August the only legit shop was Geoffrey Tailor, a couple people on computer and phone doing online sales and phoned-in hires in a first-storey storage-closet sort of place, not like a normal retail establishment.

Perhaps I'm very lucky. Just about 2 months ago I received my "Lunar" (Barb Tewksbury's approved modification, with no brown stripe because "there's no brown on the moon") tartan kilt made with fabric woven by DC Dalgliesh. I'm sufficiently new at all this that I can't judge the fabric myself nor even attest to the nature or quality of the selvage (or even spell that word without help), but I really LIKE the garment.

But more on topic, when one lists tourist trap retailers on the Royal Mile, where would Gordon Nicoloson sit on that spectrum? I ask because my wife is infatuated with "The Nursing Tartan" (woven as a restricted tartan by Lochcarron, with completed products sole ONLY by Nicolson, and NONE of those permitted to be kilts. The notion is that every product sold by Nicolson from the fabric includes an (unspecified, I think) contribution to the Scottish National Health Service). When I first saw the fabric in summer 2023 at Lochcarron, I was able to communicate by email with the listed registrant of the tartan (a NHS nurse) who told me that kilts were "not yet" permitted. Indeed, NO garments other than sashes and scarves were, but a few months ago I found a pair of "ex hire" Trews on the Gordon Nicolson website, which seemed to flaunt those restrictions. Now, I'm waiting for a new weaving, after which Dr. Tewksbury will supposedly have access to fabric to make a kilt for my spouse, but Nicolson seems to have been rather uncommunicative about just when the fabric will be available. I'm told they maintain a "kilt making academy," but now I'm wondering whether perhaps they should be treated with the same suspicion as other tourist trap establishments. When we visited Edinburgh in 2023 I did not set foot in their store although we walked by it several times.

Comments?

[User]

I'm sorry to hear they've closed down. I never purchased from them. But I heard they were the best if you wanted a short custom run of tartan.

[OC Richard]

Gordon Nicoloson Royal Mile

My bad! I just forgot.

[kiltedsawyer]

Perhaps those thinking of buying a synthetic cloth kilt, might now re-consider their choice? I know that wool cloth is much more expensive and so on and wanting the kilt NOW is an attractive thought. However.................

We don't know, of course, if poor management was involved------- BUT.....................and nevertheless.......................the closure of this scarce part of the traditional cloth industry is in part one of the obvious and inevitable consequences of many following the synthetic cloth route.

Just saying.

Hard to believe that my trip to Scotland was two years ago now, but I do have a question for you Jock. While riding around on a tour bus, we saw a lot of sheep, too many to estimate their number, (but not as many as I have seen elsewhere,) yet we were told by the guide that the wool used in the mills there comes not from Scotland but from New Zealand. Is this true? If so, why? Different sheep? Different climate?
Thanks,

David

[figheadair]

Hard to believe that my trip to Scotland was two years ago now, but I do have a question for you Jock. While riding around on a tour bus, we saw a lot of sheep, too many to estimate their number, (but not as many as I have seen elsewhere,) yet we were told by the guide that the wool used in the mills there comes not from Scotland but from New Zealand. Is this true? If so, why? Different sheep? Different climate?
Thanks,

David

It depends on where in Scotland and therefore to some degree, which type of sheep. Good quality tartan uses a cross-bred yarn that is typically a 70/30 mix of Cheviot and something like Romney March. In the Highlands the principal breed is the Blackface and most of their wool is used for Harris Tweed, other course material, and carpets. The fleece many of the Lowland sheep is generally the wrong type (too short or short) and they are breed mainly for meat.

There are insufficient crossbred sheep in Scotland to provide sufficient yarn for all the tartan produced and so, for the past 50+ years most of it has been imported. Lochcarron have start to reverse that trend and for their heavy-weight yarns now have a stable supply of Scottish breed sheep wool but at the moment their is insufficient to enlarge that to include their medium and light-weights, the former being their biggest market.

[Jock Scot]

Hard to believe that my trip to Scotland was two years ago now, but I do have a question for you Jock. While riding around on a tour bus, we saw a lot of sheep, too many to estimate their number, (but not as many as I have seen elsewhere,) yet we were told by the guide that the wool used in the mills there comes not from Scotland but from New Zealand. Is this true? If so, why? Different sheep? Different climate?
Thanks,

David

I think Peter (Figheadair) has answered your question pretty accurately.

Just so you know, we have had no sheep here for about the last 25 or so years.Why? Sheep, for me were more trouble than they were worth.

[Troglodyte]

Hard to believe that my trip to Scotland was two years ago now, but I do have a question for you Jock. While riding around on a tour bus, we saw a lot of sheep, too many to estimate their number, (but not as many as I have seen elsewhere,) yet we were told by the guide that the wool used in the mills there comes not from Scotland but from New Zealand. Is this true? If so, why? Different sheep? Different climate?
Thanks,

David

Sheep-farming and therefore wool production in both Australia and New Zealand has been very efficiently and cleverly managed for decades, and a fair proportion of what is marketed here in the UK as 'British' wool is mostly only processed or finished here. It comes from the backs of sheep reared elsewhere.

All the sheep-farmers I know (and hear about) curse the foreign imports, as their own fleeces (which, of course, is a natural and sustainable product, so ecologically very sound) has less than no value - it costs more to sheer the sheep than the fleece is now worth.

Consequently, the fleeces are sent straight to landfill or left to rot somewhere while the Aussie and Kiwi wool travels 12,000 miles to be welcomed by an eager and needy market in the UK. Much of the wool is merino which is luxurious and soft, but has none of the tough and hard-wearing properties of the UK's native breeds that gave tweeds and plaiding their strength, texture and durability. In other words, it is not better wool.

In New Zealand, it used to be said sheep outnumber the human population by a factor of 20 (3 million people and 60 million sheep, but the ratio has changed dramatically in recent years) so the quantity of fleece and wool available is nothing that can now be matched in the UK. Britian's 'national herd' is only a fraction of what it was before idiotic policies were imposed in the wake of the BSE scandal and the foot-and-mouth epidemic with contiguous culling of all animals farmed on land connected to land that is connected to land where a F&M case might have occured.

Consequently, other than for meet, sheep have no value to the farmer, and the old familiar UK breeds are in danger of completely dying-out (as some already have) or are being cross-bred for their ease of management and marketing, than for their wool. Last year, 2024, Britain had the smallest quantity of sheep than at any time in history, according to records.

Australia is a different matter, but the climate and much of the terrain of New Zealand (particularly the South Island) resembles the UK closely, and is ideal sheep-country - hence the success of their industry, but they have no interest in the likes of Dales-bred, Cheviot, Blackface, etc, whose wool gives British cloth its distinctive character. Farming is a commercial enterprise, and products (and breeds) that have no market (let alone make a profit) are rapidly abandoned.

There are a few in the old country who are determined to do what they can to preserve the old native breeds, and make use of the fleece and wool while they can. I am involved with a folk museum that strives to preserve Scottish glen life and culture from a time before mass-production and global enterprise, and our 'Flock-to-Sock' project (which makes Gairloch and other forms of kilt-hose) uses only native breeds' fleece to such a precise level that is is possible to identify which individual sheep gave the wool for the pair of finished hose.

The demise of D. C. Dalgleish is only the latest in a long list of weavers and producers that have been forced out of business, and others I know are on the brink. Every time a non-wool kilt, or item of Highland dress made outside Scotland is bought, it is a loss to the genuine Scottish producer. The customer might justify his purchase with the saving of a few dollars, but the price he pays is the loss of an industry and a culture.