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286 Fiona Anderson Figure 2 A group of four MPs outside the House of Commons, London, 1860. George Weld (1807-86). Conservative MP is wearing a pair of trousers in the shepherd's check. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London. quality of manufacture (Textile Manufacturer January 15 1878: 2). A Ha wick manufacturer quoted in a local newspaper of October 27 1855 stressed this emphasis of the Scotch tweed trade when he encouraged other manufacturers to "Spare no expense on your wools . . . your dyestuffs . . . aim at excellency of fabrics . . . and beauty of design; repel every attempt to compromise" {Hawick Advertiser October 27 1855). Interestingly for a branch of the nmeteenth century textile industry renowned for the production of constant novelty and variety in design, the bulk of their cloth was designed for menswear (Ponting 1987: 84-7; Taylor 1999: 42-3). In order to explore the theoretical issues dealt with in this article, it is important first to clarify the type of cloths that came under the generic name of tweed in the late nineteenth century. James Locke is linked to the mythology surrounding the origins of the name tweed in that various texts debate whether the word derived from a clerk working for Locke who misread the Scottish word tweel or twill (which was the weave characteristic of Scottish woolens at that time) for tweed, or if the name derives from the Tweed river in the Scottish Borders (Ponting 1987: 83; Stiliie 1970: 311). What is more conclusive as evidence is that the word tweed does not appear in any business data surveyed before the early 1840s and that it was widely used after that throughout the textile and
spinning the Ephemeral with the Sublime 287 tailoring trades (Gulvin 1973: 250). Today, the word tweed primarily suggests heavy-weight, rough-textured woolen cloths, similar to Harris tweed. However, the tweed industry of the late nineteenth century produced a much greater diversity of cloth than is signaled by contemporary, popular understanding of the term. The three principal classes of tweed that are regularly docutnented in trade literature of the period are Saxonies, Cheviots, and Homespuns. Saxony tweeds are fine and densely woven and have a soft, smooth handle. They are made from merino wools and the finest versions are indistinguishable from worsted cloths. Cheviot tweeds have a rougher appearance and a more open texture than Saxonies, although the finer versions were widely used as suiting and trousering cloths in the late nineteenth century. Homespun tweeds have the rough, coarse-textured appearance that is popularly associated with the term tweed today, with Harris tweed being the best known version of this category of tweed {Henry Ballantyne and Sons 1929: 75-79). These three classes of tweed, were also each available in a wide range of weights and a phenomenal range of fancy designs. Gulvin indicates the extent to which novelty and variety were central to the appeal of Scotch tweed. He states: The Scotch tweed trade was largely a "one-off" trade, with few lengthy runs . . . Such a trade put a premium on designers and pattern-weavers, who were expensive to maintain; large numbers of trial patterns had to be produced from which merchants could choose. A firm with an annual turnover of about 12,000 pieces made about 1,500 ranges of eighty to 100 patterns each in a year, or 150,000 different patterns. (Gulvin 1973: 159). The Scottish woolen industry continued to focus mainly on producing women's shawls and men's trouserings until the 1850s when the decline in demand for their shawls left them looking for new markets (Ponting 1987: 80;Ciulvin 1973). The avenues that manufacturers chose to pursue involved producing tweed to be made up into men's shooting jackets and knickerbockers, styles that had just become fashionable as utilitarian sporting wear (Figure 3). 'T'he continued success of tbe tweed industry was therefore strongly linked to the growing popularity of specific sporting and leisure pursuits and the development of new styles of men's dress. The sports for which these tweed garments were worn at that period such as shooting, fishing, and deer-stalking were intrinsically linked to rural contexts. However, by the 1860s the utilitarian shooting-jacket style had developed into the almost identical lounge jacket, which was often worn with matching trousers, thus forming the modern lounge or business suit (Anderson 2000: 410-16). These changes had a significant impact on the contexts within which tweed was worn. Tailoring trade literature of the late 1860s period onwards indicates that Cheviots and Saxonies were widely worn within
Page 1 and 2: Fashion Theory, Volume 9, Issue 3,
Page 3: Figure 1 Scottish shepherd wearing
Page 7 and 8: Figure 4 Brooke Boothby, Second Sec
Page 9 and 10: Spinning the Ephemeral with the Sub
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Page 15 and 16: Figure 6 A deer-stalking party at G
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