05/05/2023
This week’s guest is Dr Kat Jungnickel, sociologist (from Goldsmiths, University of London), cyclist, tweed enthusiast and keen investigator of historical clothing patents. We talk about how the popularity of ‘safety’ bicycles in Britain in the 1890s became a catalyst for the women’s rights movement and led to sartorial inventions and patents for new forms of (convertible) cycle wear that…
03/02/2021
This weeks episode is all about Harris Tweed, a legend among cloths and arguably the most socially significant of fabrics. My guests this week are Lorna Macaulay and Rebecca Hutton from the Hebridean Islands. Lorna is CEO of the Harris Tweed Authority, promoters and protectors of the tweed, and Rebecca Hutton, an independent single-width weaver at Taobhtuath Tweeds. We talk…
20/07/2019
It’s getting on for 7 years, but in that time I’ve published close to 600 articles here on the blog. Some get a lot of reads, others not so many. As a service to my regular followers that may be stuck for something to while away the Summer days, I’ve assembled two lists of suggested reading material. One covers the…
18/10/2013
In another post where I talk smack about stuff I really shouldn’t talk about, given that I’m a civil engineer not a marketing guru, I give you: What makes a brand? A name, a designer, a style, something ethereal and mystic, history, or something else entirely? To me, names come and go, designers are rarely given celebrity status, styles come…