Dir. of Scottish Tartan Authority Criticizes Edinburgh Shops

[davedove]

What Matt Says is right. It's not so much the selling of the cheap kilts. After all, it is a free market and everything has it's place. It's the misrepresentation that's the problem.

they're trying to deceive people into believing this is a kilt made in Scotland when in reality it most likely was made by some poorly paid woman or child in Pakistan. (Can you say sweat-shop?)

It doesn't even have to be sweat shop conditions. It could be a perfectly reasonable shop that pays the equivalent of 50 cents an hour, which while it seems slave wages to us, would actually be a phenomenal wage in Pakistan, where the minimum wage is about 25 cents an hour. We have to be careful about using the sweat shop label. While I'm sure they exist, for the most part it's just different standards of living that cause the cheaper labor.

[McClef]

I should also point out that such establishments as these are not just limited to the Royal Mile, they can also be found in the Princes/George St area.