Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
In December 1957, Reverend Murdoch MacRae traveled from his parish on Lewis and Harris, one of the Outer Hebridean islands off the north west of mainland Scotland, across the Atlantic Ocean to confront the US Federal Trade Commission in Washington. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s tariffs on woollen imports were threatening an exodus of the island’s workers whose hand-woven tweed jackets, trousers and caps — beloved by Americans from Wall Street bankers to the Kennedys and Hollywood actors — were the lifeblood of the local economy. Little did MacRae know that his successful mission to shield islanders from US protectionism would be undone almost 70 years later by the son of a fellow Lewis native, Donald Trump.
“Trump might portray himself as a man of Scottish heritage, he might have used the family Bible at his inauguration,” says Iain Martin, a fourth-generation weaver, but “that man doesn’t care. He’s out for himself, nobody else.”
Martin is one of just 150 weavers of Harris Tweed, a fabric made from coarse, woven wool. It’s been his life. He first started winding bobbins — a now semi-automated part of the process that’s essential for loading the yarn onto the loom — when he was five. Now, aged 57, he weaves about 8,000 meters of tweed every year, on top of looking after a 15-acre farm and 600 sheep. He uses a loom bought by his grandfather in 1926, which he keeps in a workshop together with his own stack of family Bibles, a collection of colourful bobbins and a heavy blanket hand-woven by his grandmother.
The distinctive diagonal patterned Harris Tweed, unique to the Hebrides, is part of the collateral damage caused by the US president’s imposition of sweeping tariffs on global trade, which he defends as necessary to protect American jobs. Tweed exports are tiny compared to the £59.3 billion total value of UK goods sent to the US. But even after Trump’s deal with the UK government — which reduced the levies for some sectors — the crofters and weavers face the same 10 percent tariff rate as much bigger companies like automaker Jaguar Land Rover Ltd, Diageo Plc the consumer products group and fashion brand Burberry Group Plc.
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The islanders warn, as MacRae did seven decades ago, that the tariffs threaten a way of life that dates back to the 18th century on the remote islands that are home to around 26,000 people, the bulk of whom live on Lewis and Harris.
The US president’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, used to be one of the islanders. She grew up on Lewis before emigrating, aged 17, to New York in 1930.
“A lot of islanders go to work elsewhere and they never return back home, but for people like me, crofting, weaving it’s in the blood,” says Martin, “that’s what draws me to keeping these traditions alive.”
Nike Sparks A Tweed Renaissance
Manufacture of the fabric is protected by a 1993 British act of parliament which says it can only be made from pure sheep’s wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides, hand-woven at home and finished in the Western Isles. It’s then exported to around 55 countries — the US, France, Germany, Italy and Japan are the biggest markets — and used in everything from luxury suits to sneakers and even on whisky flasks.
Trump’s Tariffs Hit Traditional Industry in Outer Hebrides
The industry has historically been sensitive to the whims of American buyers who have had an outsized impact on the sector. Getting a tailored tweed suit was a rite of passage for young men in the post-War era. But when US consumers ditched wool for lighter fabrics in the 1980s, Hebridean tweed-makers entered a sharp downturn. Years later, a limited-edition tweed sneaker by Nike Inc. brought the fabric to the attention of a younger audience and sparked a renaissance in the 2000s.
The once derelict Shawbost mill, dating back to the 1920s, was reborn as Harris Tweed Hebrides Ltd. in 2007 to capture some of those new US consumers. Now the largest of the three mills and the biggest private sector employer on the island with turnover of around £9 million in 2023, according to company filings, the US remains its top export market. Around 1 million meters of the fabric is produced annually. The Shawbost mill makes around 65 percent of that total and sells to international brands like Ralph Lauren Corp., Brooks Brothers and Christian Dior SE.
Margaret Ann Macleod, chief executive officer of Harris Tweed Hebrides, describes the 10 percent tariff as “hugely concerning,” especially as it comes on top of higher employment taxes in the UK and against a slowdown in the global luxury market.
Demand for the fabric is also exposed to the high levies imposed on European Union exports by the Trump administration. Although not a direct cost for the Hebridean mills, anything that increases the price of a garment made with Harris Tweed fabric for US clients could make people think twice about using it.
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Last week the US Court of International Trade declared the Trump tariffs illegal, but a successful appeal by the White House means that a final decision has been delayed meaning that those on the receiving end of the measures are still awaiting their fate.
“The worst thing for buyers is being unsure,” Macleod says. “When there are unknown costs that we can’t quantify, it can make a difference between them selecting a British heritage textile or not. They may make a choice to delay that purchase, reduce the quantity or not buy at all.”
About 15 percent of Harris Tweed Hebrides’ annual fabric production is already sold to Asian clients. The mill is now trying to strengthen links with the likes of South Korea, its fastest growing market, and Japan, which Macleod will visit later this year as part of a British trade delegation. It’s also reviewing its prices — the cloth retails at £55 per meter for individual consumers — in response to the tariffs.
Yet quickly pivoting to new geographies is not easy for a “slow fashion” business where completing an order can take up to three months. The industry will also have to put in extra efforts to crack down on counterfeits and raise brand awareness in newer markets like China.
“We’re not going to offshore production, we legally cannot do that even if we wanted to,” says Calum Iain Maciver, interim chief executive officer of the Harris Tweed Authority, a statutory body responsible for protecting the reputation of the cloth. “Returning manufacturing plants to the USA, that is Trump’s goal, but there are so many industries that are caught up in that. It’s quite a blunt instrument to try and solve a domestic American problem, it really is a sledgehammer.”
From Sheep to Shop
Making Harris Tweed is a complex months-long process that starts with bales of blended pure sheep wool sourced from across the UK, not just the Hebrides. Using one of 60 base colours, the mill dyes the woollen fibres before spinning them to ensure the rich hues. Different coloured wools are then weighed and blended together according to precise recipes cooked up by the mill’s designer to create a wide range of shades.
The wool then goes to carding — a mechanical combing process to first disentangle and then mix the fibres — resulting in a candy-floss-like yarn thread in colours ranging from pinkish red to soft brown or earthy green. It is then spun to strengthen the yarn, making it ready to be wound onto bobbins. Millworkers then arrange thousands of warp threads — a word said to be from the Old Norse Varp, meaning “the cast of a net” — which run side-by-side lengthwise on the fabric before separating them into parallel strips and winding them onto a large beam.
The yarn, together with a pattern card, is then delivered to one of the island’s self-employed weavers, who introduce the weft colours — the horizontal threads passed through the warp that give the fabric its zig-zag quality. The cloth is then washed, dried, steam-pressed and cropped back at the mill, and made ready for inspection. If it meets the standard, it’s stamped with the Orb certification mark of the HTA and readied for export.
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This intricate process employs 300 millworkers and weavers, many of whom are scattered in remote villages across the island. The Authority estimates the sector is also indirectly responsible for an additional 100 jobs in restaurants, bars and shops plus another 1,000 registered local artisans who use the fabric to make and sell clothes and small accessories.
“Harris Tweed is literally woven into the community,” says Macleod, “and the economic fortunes of the islanders have been dictated by what’s been happening in the sector.”
There’s little confidence among the islanders that the Trump family connection will prove decisive in efforts to overhaul the tariffs. After arriving in the US, the president’s mother married real-estate developer Frederick Trump. And while her son has regularly boasted about his heritage and golf courses in Scotland, he’s expressed little interest in Lewis. His last visit was a whistle-stop three hour trip in 2008.
When asked by Bloomberg News about the criticism from islanders that Trump had no interest in the Hebrides and the impact of the tariffs, Kush Desai, the White House deputy press secretary, said in an emailed statement: “The only interest guiding President Trump’s decision-making is the best interest of the American people.”
Retailers selling Harris Tweed garments like Peter Christian, a £10 million British tailoring brand are already adapting to the new tariff regime. With US customers accounting for almost 70 percent of its tweed suit sales, the company offered them a 10 percent discount labelled “reverse tariffs” in early April and scaled back advertising at the start of 2025 after a slowdown in its US sales growth that predated Trump’s measures.
Tweed is also a powerful tool for the islands’ estimated £75 million tourism sector. Stornoway received a record 57,000 cruise ship passengers last year, and many visit weavers at home and learn about crofting. They also spend big in restaurants and pubs and splash out on Harris Tweed jackets or small souvenirs like pouches, key chains or hats.
For now, says the HTA’s Maciver, there’s no point in retracing MacRae’s 1957 voyage to lobby Washington given the “uncertainty and movement” around the tariffs.
Margaret Ann Macleod of Harris Tweed Hebrides says the ‘worst thing for buyers is being unsure’ and that the tariffs have created uncertainty.
In Stornoway the language is more personal, but still polite. “Shame on you, Donald John” declared a banner in front of Lewis Revival, an antique shop opposite the port, that was removed last week after the council complained.
“He’s not liked here at all,” says Miriam Hamilton, 32, a weaver in Crossbost, a picturesque village 10 miles from Stornoway. Even though Americans account for about half of her online sales, she’s not planning to cut her prices to ease the burden of higher levies on her US customers. “They voted for that guy and they can pay the tariffs.”
By Irina Anghel
