He is known to back buying British at all times – especially when it comes to traditional handmade items.

And now it can be revealed that Prince Charles really does give more than two buttons about supporting the country’s craftspeople.

For he has insisted that even the tiniest part of his iconic Scottish attire must be home-sourced – after the heir to the throne rejected stag horn buttons from Austria for his kilt jacket and matching waistcoat.

Instead, they had to be Scottish, he said.

After a hunt, John Sugden, owner of Campbell’s of Beauly – which made the striking attire – managed to find good Scottish stag buttons to sow on to the stunning khaki green, faint houndstooth pattern tweed, which has an orange window pane check.

“The prince had chosen the tweed himself. It just happened by chance to be the cloth on my father’s old briefcase and the prince said ‘that’s just what I’m looking for,’” said Sugden, who has just been announced as a textiles programme ambassador for The Prince’s Foundation.

“The majority of stag horn buttons come from Austria. The prince is very open and both fastidious and passionate about craft. So he insisted that the buttons had to be Scottish stag horn. He does care about the detail. It really matters to him that he promotes British crafts– even with the smallest of things.

“We were actually both a little concerned that it would be the Austrian buttons that went on the jacket because we couldn’t find an alternative at the time. But the prince’s fastidious nature drove us to look into sourcing Highland stag and we went to great lengths to do so. Now we have a gamekeeper who makes them for us.

“Why do we have to ship stag horn buttons from Austria at all that extra cost? It does not make sense. It also fits in with the prince’s philosophy about carbon footprint with the distance goods unnecessarily travel to market.”

The cost of the jacket and waistcoat has not been revealed, but a similar bespoke pair of the garments made by Campbell’s retails at around £1,500.

Sugden said the prince’s insistence on Scottish stag horn buttons was one important example of why it was important to promote British crafts.

Through his role as an ambassador, he will use his expertise of working in the textiles industry to support the prince’s charity in its vision, mission and strategy.
He is also co-chair with Patrick Grant – from the BBC’s The Great British Sewing Bee – of the Dumfries House textiles school in Ayrshire.

The Prince’s Foundation’s Future Textiles programme aims to address a skills gap within the UK textiles industry by offering practical workshops and advanced training courses to school pupils, teachers and those looking to gain employment in the industry. Many of these courses are delivered in the estate’s textile training  entre, located in the old sawmill at Dumfries House where the foundation is based.

Programmes range from one-day workshops for school pupils to in-depth training programmes producing garments for the luxury fashion market. Supporters of the programme including major retailers and brands such as Yoox, Net-a-Porter, Alexander McQueen and Christopher Kane.

Campbell’s, which holds a royal warrant from the Queen, also supplies the Royal Household and makes all the tweed outfits for Balmoral Estate.

Over the years, the company has also supplied the Queen Mother and the Duke of Windsor. Sugden is too discreet to name other famous clients but admitted: “I often see our clothes being worn by people gracing the pages of Hello, Country Life, and Harper’s Bazaar.

“I saw the movement towards craft coming. I try to push and promote British-made products. We use British cloth every time we can. We have some of the finest fabrics in the world. Fast fashion will have a downward spiral.”

Sugden has worked with the prince for five years. “I have always had a passion for clothing and for making things in Britain – and so does the prince,” he said.

People are starting to care more about provenance. But I was struck by the lack of skills in the industry that were in danger of dying out and that it was imperative to build them up.

“The problem is not really in design – lots of people want to be designers – but there is a worrying age gap in making things in such skills as cutting, tailoring and working as seamstresses. If the demand is coming back we need to make young people feel valued in the industry again.

“We need people to work on the shop floor of the mills again – it is not like the days of Jerusalem and dark satanic mills. They are modern working spaces. A weaving job is a skilled job. We all can’t be designers. We have to enthuse people to be involved in the whole process. Even the skills to darn socks are being lost.”

Sugden recognised that the fashion industry had to do more to cut down on its environmental damage from such things as microfibres polluting the ocean.

He said: “We need to drive down the use of plastic in the industry. I know its a great passion of his highness as well to get its usage down. It’s a huge challenge for the fashion industry, but in the UK we are specialists in natural fibres. I would rather buy natural fibres – why do we need polyester? It’s just the price. You have to change the psyche of young people.

“What the prince is doing at Dumfries House is amazing and leading the way in saving our traditional crafts. It is offering youngsters the opportunity and pathway to be part of the future of Britain’s textile industry. Without his initiative and raising awareness there is a real danger we could lose these old skills.”

It is not the first time the prince has publicly backed buying British. During a visit in 2016 to the Isle of Harris distillery in the Outer Hebrides, Charles, known as Lord of the Isles, asked why its £10 gin drinking glasses were made in Poland.

The Isle of Harris distillery’s gin is contained in distinctive bottles made in Yorkshire by specialist manufacturer Stolzle Glass Group. “They couldn’t do both?” asked the prince. It was explained to the prince that they could not.

Polish-born Peter Kwasniewski, the Tarbert-based distillery’s shop manager, said afterwards:”We tried in the UK to find a handmade glass that could match the pattern of our bottles. But we couldn’t find anybody. We also tried in France but with the same result. I knew of a manufacture in southern Poland who were able to do it.”