Fashion & the Scottish Textile Industry

When thinking about Scottish textiles, the first thing that might come to mind is the traditional Scottish kilt – but what if we told you that you can easily get a Chanel or Dior worthy scarf from the likes of Johnstons of Elgin and their factory nestled in the Scottish Borders…

Roles within this industry range from merchandising, pattern cutting, marketing, and buying. The role of maintenance of production of quality designs and garments.

Did you know big names like Chanel, Vivienne Westwood, Missoni and Sonia Rykiel have all had some if not the majority of their knitwear garments made in Scotland? By having these big names using Scottish knitwear it has helped to contribute £956 million and is this country’s seventh largest contributor to the Scottish economy!

One of the best examples of this is Chanel using Barrie knitwear in Hawick, in the Scottish Borders –which was also Chanel’s previous creative director Karl Lagerfeld’s favourite factory. Barrie Knitwear was founded back in 1903 and is far from the Parisian Chanel catwalk and has been helping to supply the French fashion house for over 25 years now. As well as Chanel, Barrie Knitwear also produce the finest cashmere for Hermès, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, and Burberry.

The knitwear factory in the Scottish Borders is celebrating their 120th anniversary – considerably impressive considering the fact that Barrie Knitwear has been knitting away longer than Pringle of Scotland and Lyle & Scott with only 270 members of staff.

It was reported last year that within the Scottish textile industry that 65% of production is exported for the use of luxury brands, which isn’t a surprise considering back in 2012 Chanel bought over Barrie Knitwear when the Scottish textile company fell into administration for a fee that was reported to be around seven figures – however the final price has never been disclosed to the public. This purchase was also due to Karl Lagerfeld, who wanted to “save the know-how” and from that Barrie continues to manufacture 6 to 7 Chanel collections annually, made up from the manufacture of garments and accessories.

This influence of Chanel acquiring Barrie has led to this company becoming the benchmark to other knitwear businesses. With Barrie undertaking a period of extraordinary growth, the company is seen as the home of cashmere in the UK due to their influential recognition with the quality and most importantly the skills that have been invested that has been weaved into the garments being produced.