The Cold Is Here and So Is the Tweed

The Cold Is Here and So Is the Tweed

Here is the thing about Harris Tweed that I never get tired of telling people. There is no factory. Every single length of it is woven by one person, by hand, at their own house on an island in the North Atlantic. A loom in a shed or in a back room, worked with the feet, by somebody who lives there. That is not a story somebody made up for a hangtag. It is the law.

The cold showed up in Seattle this week and it is not leaving. The holidays are close. So this is the right week to talk about the warmest cloth I know how to get my hands on.

The only cloth with its own act of parliament

Harris Tweed is protected by an act of parliament, passed in 1993. The act says exactly what the cloth has to be. Pure virgin wool. Dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides. Woven by hand by the islanders at their own homes. If any one of those is not true, it cannot carry the Orb mark and it cannot be called Harris Tweed. There is no other cloth on earth with that kind of fence around it.

I like that for the obvious reason. Nobody can cheapen it. The thing you are holding is the thing it says it is.

Three a year, woven for us

Every year three new Harris Tweeds are woven by hand for Black Bear Brand, and three jackets come out of them. That is the whole plan. Not a season of them. Three.

This year it was the MIDNIGHT GLEN Tartan, then the WILDFLOWER Tartan, and the MOSS FIRE Tartan is the last of the three. When a tweed is gone it does not come back, because the next year has its own three. Every jacket is then sewn here in Seattle.

What is on the rack right now

Seven of them.

The WILDFLOWER Tartan chore coat, his and hers. These are the newest, out two weeks ago. The MIDNIGHT GLEN Tartan western jacket. The GOLDEN Harris Tweed chore coat. The PSYCHEDELIC BLUE Tartan western jacket. The SKY BLUE Tartan zip coat. And the STONEWALL Ranch Coat.

The WILDFLOWER and GOLDEN chore coats are lined in black diamond quilting made in Japan, with our own YKK donut button and YKK snaps, special Black Bear Brand cuffs, double-needle stitching throughout, a diamond back stitch on the collar, and a COMMANDER tag at the inner neck. The MIDNIGHT GLEN and PSYCHEDELIC BLUE western jackets carry the diamond-quilt lining as well. The STONEWALL Ranch Coat runs vintage style gold YKK snaps throughout, over the same quilted lining through the body and sleeves.

Sizing is not the same across all of them, so check the size guide at the top of whichever page you are on. That is the one place I would not guess.

The MOSS FIRE releases November 17

The third of this year's three, and it comes as a zip coat. Eleven days out.

One hundred percent pure virgin MOSS FIRE Tartan Harris Tweed, 470 to 500 grams, hand woven by islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides, where the wool is also dyed, spun and finished. Japanese diamond quilting throughout the lining. A two-way main zipper and a zippered chest pocket, both made by TALON in Japan. Two waist pockets, one chest pocket, two inside. Sewn in Seattle. X-Small through XXX-Large.

A zip coat is a different animal than a chore coat. You pull it on and it closes all the way up and it stays shut when the wind means it. This tweed earned that cut.

Why a tweed coat

Wool does something no technical fabric has managed yet. It is warm when it is wet. It takes wind out of the air instead of arguing with it. And a tweed does not look better on the hanger than it does in year six, which is the opposite of almost everything sold now.

I have a tweed coat I have worn hard for years and it is just starting to get good. That is the whole idea. You are not buying this winter. You are buying the next fifteen.

Two more things

The Limited Edition HEAVEY button fly Cowboy jeans release November 10, and this is their first release. 15oz shuttle loom woven selvedge denim, woven for us in Okayama, with a warp spun from natural brown cotton and then rope dyed in indigo. Here they are.

And the holiday jacket preorders are open. The roughout COMMANDER jackets in natural and in black charcoal. The Northern Dream jacket, which opens once a year and that is it. The Northern Dream reversible vests. The Long Curly Lamb and Botanical Indigo Denim winter coat. We plan to keep the window open until early December, and the closing date is not set yet, so I would not sit on it.

Your turn

Which of the tweeds is pulling at you? Write me and tell me. I read them all.

Have a nice day. I mean that.

josh

SHOP THE STORY

MOSS FIRE Harris Tweed Tartan Zip Coat, releasing November 17

WILDFLOWER Harris Tweed Chore Coat, his

WOMAN WILDFLOWER Harris Tweed Chore Coat, hers

MIDNIGHT GLEN Tartan Harris Tweed Western Jacket

GOLDEN Harris Tweed Chore Coat

PSYCHEDELIC BLUE Tartan Harris Tweed Western Jacket

SKY BLUE Harris Tweed Tartan Zip Coat