A collaboration between Harris Tweed weavers and an independent slow fashion brand has brought the cloth made on the Outer Hebrides to a new audience — and made an Instagram star out of a 33-year-old weaver. Tweed is attracting a growing international fanbase thanks to social media, Gen Z and the revolt against fast fashion. A reel on the Hackney-based Paynter Jacket Co’s Instagram feed showing Rachel Thomson, a Glasgow School of Art graduate, weaving the rich earthy Penny Brown Harris Tweed on the pedal-powered loom has been watched by hundreds of thousands of people.
The clip, in which Thomson talks from her aunt’s garage in Stornoway, Island of Lewis, about her work and her accidental entry into the world of weaving, has attracted nearly.
