Harris Tweed wins legal battle to protect name

Harris Tweed take any misuse of their name or brand very seriously. Picture: Ian Georgeson

The Scottish organisation, set up to safeguard the integrity of the Harris Tweed brand, has settled a dispute with the US retailer Euromarket Designs Inc over its labelling of a design of chairs.

It had offered for sale a Harris Tweed Chair and Harris Herringbone Chair on its Crate and Barrel website.

The products were not made from Harris Tweed, a fabric hand-woven on the Western Isles and protected by UK law.

In June the authority, based in the Western Isles, discovered that Crate and Barrel was selling goods described using Harris Tweed, when this was not true.

The company referred to its “Harris Tweed Collection” with items labelled as “Harris Tweed Chair” and “Harris Herringbone Chair”.

Neither style of chair contained any Harris Tweed.

Both products were available for purchase for a number of weeks on Crate and Barrel’s website, its stores and were advertised for sale in its catalogues.

The selling and promotion of the chairs in the UK breaches the Harris Tweed Act 1993 and other rights held by the Authority on behalf of the Harris Tweed industry.

Court proceedings were raised to protect the brand, and following negotiations, Crate and Barrel explained that its improper use of the name Harris Tweed was not deliberate and no chairs from the Collection had been sold in the UK.

The authority has secured both “an appropriate monetary settlement” and assurances from Crate and Barrel that there will be no repetition.

Harris Tweed is cloth, hand woven only by the islanders of Lewis, Harris, Uist and Barra in their own homes, using pure virgin wool that has been dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.

This is the definition of Harris Tweed clearly stated in the Harris Tweed Act of 1993 and it ensures that all cloth officially certified with the world-renowned Harris Tweed Orb symbol complies with this definition, making it genuine Harris Tweed – the world’s only commercially produced hand woven tweed.

It creates employment for over 350 craftsmen and women.

Lorna Macaulay, chief executive of the Harris Tweed Authority, said: “As we are based in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland it can sometimes seem a long way away from the commercial markets in which Harris Tweed is sold.

“But we never let this distance hinder our continued efforts to protect our various registered marks throughout the world.”

The ancient Scottish cloth has been worn by Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna and former Dr Who Matt Smith.