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TIMELESS
FINNIES THE JEWELLER
Flower of
Scotland
THIS SEASON THE INFLUENCE OF SCOTLAND IN FASHION IS AS PUBLICLY EVIDENT AS COULD BE. FROM SAM MCCOACH’S SENSATIONAL DESIGNS FOR LE KILT TO CHRISTOPHER KANE’S COLLECTION IN HOMAGE TO CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH, IT’S ABOUT UPBRINGING, IDENTITY AND A VERY PERSONAL CONNECTION WITH HOME. BEHIND THE CULTURAL FLOWERING LIES A FREELY-ACCESSIBLE ART EDUCATION. SARAH MOWER MBE UNPICKS THE WARP AND WEFT OF HOW SCOTTISH DESIGNERS HAVE BECOME THE MOST EXCITING IN THE WORLD
You don’t need to be around London fashion for very long to realise exactly how many Scottish designers are woven into the weft and warp of the fashion community. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not because they boast about it. It’s just a question of using your ears. Scottish accents are all over the place, so much so that it barely seems remarkable any more. Yet, if you asked a fashion critic like me to name the top two most exciting British designers working today, the answer would have to be Christopher Kane in womenswear, and Charles Jeffrey, who is breaking all sorts of boundaries with his Loverboy menswear collective. They’re different people, doing very different things, but both are from the same place: Glasgow.
Look further into the industry, which is now worth £28 billion to the UK economy, and there are Scottish voices all over the place. There’s Holly Fulton, the print designer, from Dundee; Louise Gray, now principally an artist, is from Aberdeen. Patrick Grant, the Savile Row tailor best-known for his part in The Great British Sewing Bee, comes from Edinburgh. One of the most exciting newcomers in men’s fashion week is Nicholas Daley, who is half-Scottish, half-Jamaican. The girl behind Le Kilt, Sam McCoach, has just scooped the prestigious Woolmark Prize – a contest hotly contended by designers from around the UK. She’s from Edinburgh. Holland & Holland, the ultra-upmarket British country-outdoor-wear company (which incidentally is owned by Chanel), is designed by Stella Tennant, the supermodel who knows all about country life because she hails from the Borders, with her friend Isabella Cawdor, of the highlands – who, in turn, is mother of the latest 18-year-old Scottish modelling phenomenon, Jean Campbell. Meanwhile, off in New York, Jonathan Saunders, another son of Glasgow, is working his charm and talent for print, as he re-tools the powerhouse brand that is Diane Von Furstenburg.
This season, the influence of Scotland in fashion is about as publicly evident as could be: tartan is – as our mothers used to say – ‘in’. Foreign designers, from Opening Ceremony in New York to Junya Watanabe in Tokyo, have been referencing plaid in ways which re-echo its long history with street-style, from Vivienne Westwood- festooned seventies punks to Kurt Cobain and nineties grunge. International orders from Lochcarron, the world’s biggest supplier of tartans, must be booming.
MODERNISING HERITAGE: Sam McCoach’s brand, Le Kilt, passionately supports Scottish craftspeople and is also flying the flag for the return of the tam o’shanter, as can be seen, left, in her collection for A/W17;
right: the extreme latticework of Christopher Kane’s cage crystal skirt and icing embroidered top, from his S/S18 collection
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