THE custodian of Harris Tweed has taken action to defend the trademark from imposters after a retailer misused the historic name.
The Harris Tweed Authority (HTA) contacted ITX Fashion Limited, the internet trading arm of Zara, after it discovered it was selling a product on its website described, but not actually labelled, as "Harris Tweed Blazer". The product was not made from Harris Tweed and therefore ITX had acted contrary to the Harris Tweed Act 1993.
The HTA said the proceedings had been concluded amicably, with the authority having secured assurances from ITX that there would be no repetition.
The HTA said it accepted the incident was not deliberate and was an oversight on the part of ITX, for which it had apologised.
However it considered such conduct with "the utmost seriousness", as misuse of the Harris Tweed name risked undermining the integrity of the Scottish cloth.
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