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01 October 2006 The awards are the brainchild of Mary McGowne. She previously worked in the fashion industry with Scottish retailer Cruise but in the course of her work came to realise that there was a community of talented and creative Scots all over the globe whose efforts were not being supported or recognised. Instead, she watched as Tartan Week promoted what she felt was an overly parochial view of Scotland. “Scottish heritage values [she means tartan] do have their place but there’s so much more to sing about. As far as I can see there has not been a huge drive to promote really edgy, cool, contemporary values – which is why I created these awards, to create a platform where we could promote these people, these stylish Scots.” Of course, you don’t need me to tell you that plaid is a key look this autumn so you would expect there to be some on display at the Scottish Style Awards. But, judging by past winners, such as cutting-edge design duo Timorous Beasties, there will certainly be no shortbread and not even a whiff of the kailyard tack that tartan sometimes represents. Instead, there will be scores of nominees across categories such as Tastemaker Of The Year. This pits a record label (Breastfed Records) against a top hairdresser (Malcolm Edwards) and a digital design agency (RM-STAR). There will be other categories for bars, buildings, hotels, restaurants, bands and people. Especially people. McGowne has also assembled an impressive roster of judges including Tracey Emin, fashion photographer Rankin, GQ editor Dylan Jones and Scottish fashion designer Jonathan Saunders. But most of the focus will be on the human style icons the judges are to be asked to run their eyes over. Among them are actors David Tennant and Dawn Steele, musicians KT Tunstall and Annie Lennox, writer and critic AA Gill and footballer Steven Pressley, the inspirational captain of Edinburgh’s number one team, Heart of Midlothian. BBC Radio Scotland presenter Shantha Roberts, nominated as most stylish female, will present the awards. Also in contention are rock group Franz Ferdinand (whose ensemble of skinny jeans, pointed shoes and stripey tops is now the uniform of choice for art students everywhere) and Glasgow band The Fratellis, who go for a look McGowne describes as “burly macho, expressed in tight black T-shirts, tattoos and artfully-arranged facial hair”. “On one level you’re looking at the clothes but one of the aims of the awards is to open up the debate and ask how you define style,” says McGowne. “You can’t simply measure it in aesthetic terms either. Style can be an attitude.” So does Scotland have style? Fashion label Comme des Garçons certainly seems to think Glasgow does. Earlier this year they opened one of their much-vaunted guerrilla stores in a garage in the city’s west end. The most celebrated example of what’s called pop-up marketing, the guerrilla store is a shop which opens in an unusual space with no advertising, relying instead on word-of-mouth recommendations from the cognoscenti. Comme des Garçons refer to their guerrilla stores as “occupations”, a suitably galleryesque word for what is, in essence, a sort of fashion installation. They prefer cities which aren’t too obvious or too familiar from the standard fashion map. So no London, no Paris, no Milan. So far there have been occupations in Cologne, Reykjavik, Athens, Hong Kong, Singapore and Warsaw. Another one has just opened in Munich. They are all big cities. Many of them are capitals and in that respect we should be flattered – for the occupation to work there has to be a critical mass of switched-on trendies who appreciate the exclusivity. Comme des Garçons obviously judge Glasgow to be a city which fits that mould. They judge Glasgow (and, by extension, Scotland) to have both style and attitude. At the other end of the M8, Sue Stones is sales manager with Harvey Nichols in Edinburgh. Her job is to know what sells and what doesn’t – and why. “I don’t think Scots are more stylish than anybody else,” she says, “but they are as stylish, and they have a slightly different take to people in Leeds or Manchester, say.” For Stones, confidence and independence of thought are the qualities which distinguish the Scots from the rest of Britain. “The Scots know the trends but they don’t follow them slavishly and they have their own interpretation of them. And they’re quite confident in the sense that they don’t need to wear a single label head to toe, they want to be able to mix and match. That’s something that’s quite unique to Scotland.” Stones feeds requests from customers straight to the Harvey Nichols buyers so she knows how switched-on and fashion aware the clientele is. For example the Edinburgh store was the first outside London to stock clothes by French designer Lanvin. “He’s a real designer’s designer, very well known in fashion circles for creating beautiful clothes. He’s not a street fashion name but he was requested by our customers because of what he’s doing in the industry. We also do really well with labels like Chloe and Dries Van Noten.” For Kirsty Scott, national textiles manager with Scottish Enterprise, this is proof of something she has long known: that the Scots have an internationalist approach to style, just as they do to business, literature, art, even to the matter of who should design the parliament. Picking up style magpie-like is one thing. But what does the rest of the world see when it looks in? Is there aScottish style? “I think there is a huge amount of style here but I sometimes think foreigners appreciate it much more than we do,” says Scott. “The British style – the English heritage look and the Scottish knitwear look – are very aspirational in places like Italy. Here we think of Italian style as being great but it’s interesting that in Italy there’s a perception that British style is great.” THE same is true in France where le style anglaise – think James Bond-meets-Brideshead Revisited – is a much-admired look. Scottish style feeds into that, of course, even though it isn’t reflected in the phrase itself. Scotland doesn’t have a Prada or an Armani on which to base a concept of national style. But it does have the sumptuous raw materials that fuel these and other luxury brands. It has the cloth, if not the stitches and the cuts. Tweed, cashmere and wool are the main textiles and the importance of the industry should not be underestimated. The industry is worth £1.13 billion a year and encompasses some 500 companies. Exports total around £415m, which accounts for 4% of the country’s total manufacturing turnover. Scottish consumers are very aware of this heritage, says Sue Stones, and it governs their own fashion choices. “Scottish customers are more aware of textiles and materials. They understand about quality. They like labels that have an artisan element to them, small labels that are doing something a bit more interesting. And they’re prepared to pay for that because they appreciate the quality of it. So introducing new labels that are working in that way is much easier here than in other parts of the country.” In other words the homespun ethic that put generations of us into granny’s Arran knits also governs our taste when it comes to high-end clothes. We love the idea of cottage industries, even at £100 for the jumper and £50 each for the sleeves. Capitalising on all this are a number of well-established Scottish companies which are now reinventing themselves as must-have fashion labels. Suddenly it isn’t just the cashmere that’s sexy – the “Made in Scotland” tag is acquiring some oomph too. “Historically there have been very few Scottish companies which have invested in brand management and development,” says Kirsty Scott. “That has changed radically over the past couple of years and now we are seeing the emergence of some very strong brand-led companies who are re-positioning themselves from being manufacturers of high-end cashmere knitwear, say, into being brands with a product offering behind them. They are consciously thinking about their brand strategy and their brand values.” Pringle is one example. Until recently it was known as the purveyor of V-neck sweaters to elderly golfers. But then it got Ewan McGregor to model its jumpers and last year it even brought in a new creative director, Claire Waight Keller, to shape its autumn and winter collections. She talks about “heritage” and “tradition” while sculpting diaphanous dresses out of five-metre pieces of seamless ultra-fine silk yarn. These were shown at Milan Fashion Week in February and again at last month’s London Fashion Week and were met with real approval by the fashionistas. Backing it all up is a chic black-and-white advertising campaign which pushes all the right fashion buttons for the European fashion elite. And Pringle’s logo, remember, is the lion rampant. Kirsty Scott sees Mackintosh going the same route. “It’s another classic brand but, if you look at its website or its marketing, it’s portraying itself in an extremely contemporary way now,” she says. The venerable Scottish coat manufacturer recently opened a shop in Tokyo, will soon branch out with a luggage range and is one of the companies that will be joining Scott at Los Angeles Fashion Week this month when a Dressed To Kilt event promoting a range of Scottish companies will open proceedings. Not bad for a company based in Cumbernauld. “Scotland has always punched above its weight in the production of highly talented and highly creative designers, as evidenced by people like Jonathan Saunders and Christopher Kane,” Scott continues. “But what we’ve always had is a lot of people going overseas and either setting up on their own or going to work in the big fashion houses in Milan and London.” But even that is changing. One result of having these reinvigorated Scottish labels is that homegrown design talent now has an opportunity to stay in Scotland. “There is no shortage of talent coming out of the design schools and the industry is taking advantage of that by snapping them up,” says Kirsty Scott. “There is a lot of investment going on.” Which brings us full circle, back to the Scottish Style Awards and those thorny questions about what style is, where it lurks and whether we have it. Mary McGowne has just a few weeks left in which to complete her preparations for the big event. But, from her account at least, she has reason to be optimistic. STV is covering the event, she expects Vogue to be there along with representatives from the big English newspapers, and fashion writer Suzy Menkes is flying in especially. Menkes is chief fashion reporter for the International Herald Tribune and her voice carries no little weight. Her paper, meanwhile, has a circulation of some 250,000 and is read by opinion formers – or, to use a McGowne-ism, tastemakers – in more than 180 countries worldwide. Landing her would be a coup indeed and proof that, pinstripe kilts aside, we are not the sartorial disaster we sometimes think we are. “Scotland is a hotbed of creativity,” says McGowne, with attitude. But does Scotland have style? Hell, yeah. Maybe. The Scottish Style Awards take place on October 22 www.scottishstyleawards.co.uk From here |