The Coats Come Out
The Coats Come Out
A cloth cannot be called Harris Tweed unless it was woven in the weaver’s own house. Not a mill. A house, on an island, with the Atlantic coming in at the windows. That is not a story. That is the law.
The law says the house
The Harris Tweed Act of 1993 sets the definition and it is short. The cloth has to be handwoven by the islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides, finished in the Outer Hebrides, and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides. An inspector looks at the finished cloth and the Orb mark goes on by hand. That mark was registered in 1910 and it is the oldest British certification mark of its kind. Harris Tweed is the only cloth in the world with its own act of parliament.
I like that a country decided a cloth was worth protecting, and then protected the people who make it along with it.
Three new ones are being woven
Every year three new Harris Tweeds are woven by hand for Black Bear Brand, and three jackets are made from them. Three tweeds, and then they are gone. The cloth crosses an ocean and the jackets are cut and sewn in Seattle, and the diamond quilting that lines them is made for us in Japan. Scotland, Japan and America in one coat.
Three new tweeds are on the looms right now. I have seen the direction and I am not going to spoil it here. What is hanging today is the Highlander with its sherpa collar and body, the Stonewall, the golden chore coat, and the psychedelic blue western with all that pink and purple hiding in the blue.
The peacoat is back
Sailors named this coat. The Dutch word was pij, a coarse twilled blue cloth with a nap on one side, and a pijjekker was a jacket cut from it. English took the sound and kept the coat. American newspapers were printing the words pea jacket in the 1720s. Navies issued it in kersey, then in melton, wool milled so hard the weave disappears and the wind cannot find a way in. The cut stayed short so a man could climb rigging in it. The collar goes up. The pockets warm your hands and pull the coat in tight while they do it.
I wore a vintage one for over a decade before I ever drew a line on ours. Ours is 14.7oz wool woven special for us in the Aichi Ichinomiya area of Japan, which is where Japan has woven its wool for generations. It is lined throughout in blue cupro made special for us in Japan. Anchor buttons made in Japan. The COMMANDER tag at the inner neck. Two concealed pockets on the inside. The whole coat is made in Japan by our craftsmen, wool to final construction.
And now the new color. Forest green melton, my green, made in Japan the same way. Green wool this deep is rare and it looks like the woods behind the house I grew up near. I have wanted a coat this color for years.
Why the coat is the part I love
A coat takes the weather for you. It goes over everything else you own and it is the first thing anyone sees. That makes it worth doing properly, all the way down to the buttons and the cloth on the inside that nobody but you will ever touch.
That is why the tweed comes from the Hebrides and the wool comes from Japan and the tweed jackets are made here at home. Each piece is made where it can be made best. Nothing about that is convenient. All of it is worth it.
Your turn
Write back and tell me what the first coat of the year is for you. I read every one of these. If you want to see the green when it lands, say so and I will make sure you do.
Have a nice day. I mean that.
Josh
Shop the Story
Black Bear Brand Harris Tweed HIGHLANDER Coat
Black Bear Brand Harris Tweed STONEWALL Coat
Black Bear Brand ULTIMATE WOOL Chore Coat in GOLDEN Harris Tweed
Harris Tweed Psychedelic BLUE Tartan Western Jacket
Related Reading
Harris Tweed: The Only Cloth Protected by an Act of Parliament
Made in Seattle, Made in Japan: The Two Homes of Black Bear Brand