Wool Cloth and Gender: The Use of Woollen Cloth in Women's Dress in Britain, 1865–85

Taylor, Lou

doi:10.5040/9781847887153.v3-0082

Cited by 2 publications

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“…19 By the late nineteenth century, tailored dress styles were increasingly adopted by women, and with this came the introduction of tweed to women's wardrobes. 20 The development of Orkney tweed appears to follow a similar, albeit slower paced, trajectory to that of tweed on the Scottish mainland. Eighteenth-century archive evidence cited above makes reference to 'check' and woollen twill weave in the form of 'shalloon', but there is no known evidence of woven fabric being referred to as 'tweed' on Orkney until the early twentieth century.…”

Section: The Origins Of Orkney Tweedmentioning

confidence: 95%

Highland Romance or Viking Saga?

Pedersen

Peach

2018

Journal of Design History

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Few have heard of Orkney tweed today, but in the mid-twentieth century it was as well known as Harris Tweed, and praised for its soft and light characteristics. This article investigates the rise and fall of Orkney tweed and suggests that its decline in the 1960s can be attributed to a variety of factors, including the advent of synthetic, ready-to-wear clothing, but also problems inherent in the mixed marketing messages around the textile. While the main producers of Orkney tweed emphasized the Viking connections of the Orkney islands and their product, the fashion media and overseas customers were more comfortable with positioning Orkney tweed within a stereotypic context of Scottish romanticism, in which Orkney tweed became interchangeable—and replaceable—with all Scottish tweeds. Contemporary attempts to re-establish tweed production on the Orkney Islands have rejected both approaches, focusing instead on the ‘natural’ properties of the fabric and the production of easily portable souvenirs.

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Section: The Origins Of Orkney Tweedmentioning

confidence: 95%