TRADITION met fashion innovation at the Royal Highland Show as the wool from ancient breeds of Scottish sheep was showcased as cutting-edge fashion.
Scots designers Iona Crawford, Jo Storie, Di Gilpin, Judy R Clark, Joyce Paton and Angela Cassidy, along with some of the country's biggest fashion labels, strutted their newest work on the catwalk at the National Sheep Association (NSA) pavilion.
The audience, mostly sheep farmers, may have been dressed for rain but were mesmerised when they saw the wool from their Cheviots, Shetlands, Blackface, Charolais, Texels and Suffolks fashioned into garments by new labels like Eribe, Jaggy Nettle, Kiltpin and Obscure Couture, alongside established brands like Harris Tweed Textiles, Johnstons of Elgin and Slanj Kilts.
Sharp Italian-style lightweight tartan jackets, beautiful chunky knitwear, tailored mini dresses and contemporary Duffel jackets were showcased by a team of models. There was a surprise guest appearance by SNP MEP Alyn Smith, who closed the Scottish Enterprise-funded show in a tartan suit by Slanj.
Jimmy Sinclair, of the NSA, said: "The purpose of the fashion show is to let people see the quality of real wool and how well it can be used for clothing."
Meanwhile, in the packed-out Food Hall, Scotland's enterprising artisan food producers used the Show, which runs until tomorrow at Ingliston, to showcase new products to a captive audience of some of the 180,000 expected over the event's four days.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article