Harris Tweed; fascinating (well, to me ) prog about manufacturing, lost skills etc.

fc123

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search/?q=tweed


Watched all 3 of these this week.....brilliant documentary.....only IMHO of course and topical to this board as we are meant to be exporting our way out of trouble and to secure our futures.

We have a product that is very much wanted abroad ...and yet it is dying a death.

Mr Haggas, who is a volume menswear producer (all off shore) decided to ''save'' and then nab the whole thing for himself. His tale is car crash telly.

A Savile Row tailor (who also featured in another fab Documentary about SR) really sums it all up...and did so very dashingly too.:o

So much to gossip about but I don't want to give away the ending and some great Scottish footage too (a bit too much in part 1 but I think they were setting the mood).

Some of it made me shout at the screen esp the woman employed to 'promote' Harris Tweed......you just want to die watching her do her 'job'.

The Power Of One really shows up here as if it was someone with a bit of savvy and bite then HT could be exported all over the world and has such potential for so many products (thinking upholstery, home textiles edged with velvet, small accessories etc etc).

The isles have tourists visit to see the weavers etc...and they cannot buy anything made of HT on the island...nothing at all...not even a souvenir purse.

Anyway, thought I would link it up here as well worth 3 hours of viewing and close to my heart as we exported tonnes of used HT jkts many years ago to Japan and the profits helped us buy our 1st house.

wageslave

Scotland has some of the finest crafted goods in the world but only the uisge beatha gets marketed properly.

Look what someone could do with fair isle if they gave it half a thought.

nearlynew

House prices in Scotland are going up.


Who gives a f*ck about some bit of cloth?

wageslave

nearlynew wrote: »

House prices in Scotland are going up.


Who gives a f*ck about some bit of cloth?

We have no manufacturing left to speak of, the shipyards are all but gone, the pits too.

We should be playing to our strengths.

vivatifosi

I'm sure I heard this week that one of the tweeds had gone organic. Think I may have read it in a textiles publication. That could be a selling point too. Does that sound familiar fc?

1984ReturnsForReal_2

nearlynew wrote: »

House prices in Scotland are going up.


Who gives a f*ck about some bit of cloth?

Harris Islanders?

nearlynew

wageslave wrote: »

We have no manufacturing left to speak of, the shipyards are all but gone, the pits too.

We should be playing to our strengths.

Y

choille

House prices in Scotland are going up.


Who gives a f*ck about some bit of cloth?



Well - the world needs more like you - I think not. What a little wind up merchant.

Btw - I only saw the one programme the other night. It's all really quite sad & annoying, a bit like the above poster I quoted, although I should just ignore.

wageslave

choille wrote: »

Well - the world needs more like you - I think not. What a little wind up merchant.

Btw - I only saw the one programme the other night. It's all really quite sad & annoying, a bit like the above poster I quoted, although I should just ignore.

Alas, I am unique.

Feel free to ignore me, I certainly intend to ignore you

choille

God I'm sorry Wageslave _ I meant to quote that other poster Nearlynew - I can't believe I did that - i was so irked by them. I've edited my post - sorry!

lostinrates

I have a weird sense of deja vue about the harris tweed programmes..as a result I didn't watch, thought they were repeats