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Scottish Estate Tweeds, Johnstons of Elgin: Hardback: 1st Edition: Tartan
Scottish Estate Tweeds, Johnstons of Elgin: Hardback: 1st Edition: Tartan
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Scottish Estate Tweeds
By Johnstons of Elgin.
Published by Johnstons of Elgin, Morayshire, 1995. First Edition. Hardback cover with dustjacket (unclipped), 192 pages. Illustrated end papers. Colour photography throughout.
CONDITION
Overall good condition- see photos. Fading to spine and edges of dustjacket. Light foxing to first few front free end papers. No names or writing. Images crisp & clear throughout.
Scottish Estate Tweeds is published in anticipation of the bi-centenary of the founding of Johnstons of Elgin in 1797.
During the nineteenth century Johnstons pioneered the creation of many of the tweed designs that were originally associated with individual estates throughout Scotland. Some of these designs are so classic that they have passed into the history of the tweed making industry in the British Isles and further afield to the fashion houses of France, Italy, Japan and the USA. Today, even though many of them are over a hundred and fifty years old, they can be found in clothing stores and fashion houses throughout the world.
The Lovat tweed or 'mixture' first woven in the Johnstons mills on 26th September, 1845 and created for Lord Lovat is one example; the Glenurquhart check, possibly Scotland's greatest contribution to the world of fashion, which was designed by Elizabeth Macdougall early in the 1840s and adopted by Caroline, Countess of Seafield for her Glen Urquhart estate is a second; the gun club design which originated in the Coigach tweed woven at Johnstons mills, exported to America and then re-imported as a'gun club' perhaps because Coigach was difficult to pronounce, a third.
The need for camouflage when pursuing the red deer of Scotland on the hill led to many tweeds being designed for invisibility and when Lord Elcho created his tweed for the London Scottish Regiment he had this idea in mind. This tweed generally known as the 'Elcho mixture' led on to the khaki uniform now worn in some form or other by all the armies of the world; this too can be traced back to to estate tweeds.
These designs are part of the history of Scotland and come after the tartans of the clans (to which they could be called distant cousins) and the break up of the Scottish clan system after the 1745 rebellion. Scottish Estate Tweeds starts with a brief but informative history tracing this development from the collapse of the Jacobite cause after the Battle of Culloden 1746 and then outlines the history of Johnstons of Elgin from 1797 when Alexander Johnston first took a lease on the woollen manufactory at Newmill.' The mill of Johnstons of Elgin is still on this site two hundred years later.
The early years of the company are a fascinating study in Scottish social history and the development of Johnstons echoes the fortunes of the north of Scotland throughout the nineteenth century: examples of this, trading in herrings, spinning flax, importing merino wool from Australia, can be found throughout this
section of the book.
At the end of the Johnstons history is a resume of cashmere; what it is, where it comes from, and how it is spun and woven. This luxury fibre is the corner stone of Johnstons of Elgin at the end of the twentieth century and the often misused term Scottish cashmere' might have been coined with Johnstons in mind
The main section of the book is a directory of estate tweeds. In 1968 Edward Harrison wrote Our Scottish District Checks which was the forerunner of this volume. In it he listed and illustrated 84 estate tweeds and 22 traditional and regimental tweeds.
Scottish Estate Tweeds contains 185 plates of individual estate tweeds only, together with an indication of where the estates are and a very brief note on the history of of each tweed where this can be traced. This part of the book will serve as a reference work for tweed designers and estate owners,
historians.
Scottish Estate Tweeds is copiously illustrated and finely produced. It comes from one of the oldest, possibly the oldest, independent mill in Scotland.
THE AUTHOR
Born in 1918 Ned Harrison has worked at Johnstons all his life with the exception of the years during the Second World War.
Researching the Johnstons' records he became keenly interested in the history of estate tweeds and in this he follows his father Edward Harrison who created the parent of this book and ran Johnstons of Elgin for forty-six years from 1920-66.
Ned Harrison was himself Chairman and Managing Director of Johnstons from 1966- 78. His daughter Heather took many of the photographs of the buildings at Johnstons which are reproduced in this book.
(Bindery shelves A4)
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