Purveyors of “Tartan Tat” Taken to
Task
©2008 Matthew A. C. Newsome, FSA Scot, GTS
originally published in The Scottish Banner, September 2008
Back
in July, newspapers reported that the Gold Brothers were in trouble.
For those who may be scratching their heads and wondering who the Gold
Brothers are, they are the firm responsible for many of the cheap import
shops that the tourist will see lining the Royal Mile in Edinburgh these
days (as well as other places in Scotland), purveyors of what many
locals refer to as “tartan tat.” The owners are Surinder, Galab and
Dildar Singh.
You may not recognize the name “Gold Brothers,” but perhaps you have
visited shops or web sites operating under one of their many trade
names, including Heritage of Scotland, John Morrisons, Clans of
Scotland, and the Scottish Shop. Highland dress traditionalists
complain about the inexpensive synthetic kilts they import in from Asia,
which are often sold under the false pretenses of being “authentic woven
tartan” and “designed in Scotland.” (See my article in the Oct. 2007
Banner).
Others don’t mind the idea of inexpensive kilts per se; in fact
they are seen as a good way of getting young people introduced to
Highland dress. However, regardless of your opinion about inexpensive
kilts, people agree that consumers should not be misled, nor should the
intellectual property rights of other companies and individuals be
infringed upon. And that is just what has brought the Gold Brothers
into the news lately.
Back in July it was their use of the popular Isle of Skye tartan. This
tartan is a private, copyrighted design of Mrs. Rosemary Nicolson Samios.
In 1992, Samios, an Australian of Skye descent, now living on Skye, held
a worldwide competition to select a Skye tartan. It was won by weaver
Angus MacLeod from Lewis who produced the first commercial quantities in
traditional kilt weight in 1993 at Lochcarron Weavers in North Strome.
Mrs. Samios now controls the rights to the production of this tartan
through registration with the Patents Office and Lochcarron of Scotland
is the main supplier of fabrics and woven accessories. (Though some
other suppliers have been authorized; Marton Mills, in England, produces
it with permission in polyviscose, for example.)
The tartan has, since that time, proven to be extremely popular. And
one result of that popularity is imitation. Gold Brothers have
allegedly produced kilts, scarves, rugs, hats and other items in this
tartan, without Mrs. Samios’ permission or knowledge. When the Gold
Brothers warehouse in Kircauldy was searched, four 80m bales of
Chinese-made cloth in the Isle of Skye tartan were discovered, numbered
55, 57, 58 and 59, indicating that at least 54 other bales had been
produced. Samios is currently claiming £150,000 in damages.
Was this an isolated incident of copyright infringement? It appears
not. More recently, the Gold Brothers have been in the news again, this
time for illicitly producing the Princess Diana Memorial tartan. This
tartan was designed by Alistair Buchan, owner of Lochcarron of Scotland
and chairman of the Scottish Tartans Authority, in 1997 to commemorate
the life of Princess Diana. The sales of the tartan help to raise money
for her many charities. Which makes the unauthorized production and
sale of this tartan even more offensive.
Typically, ten percent of the manufacturer’s price of the tartan goes to
support charities. But with the unauthorized manufacture, there is no
way of tracking how much has been sold, and how much (if any) has been
donated to the designated causes.
According to an August 12 article in The Scotsman, when Alistair
Buchan first discovered his tartan being sold in the Gold Brothers’
shops, he pointed out the fact that they were not authorized to sell his
protected design. The Scotsman quotes Buchan as saying, “The
salesman apologized and said they would be removed from sale, but they
just carried on selling it without the Diana name. Lochcarron wrote them
a letter again asking them to withdraw it from sale. But again they
ignored it.”
The tragic thing to me is that many I have discussed this issue with
don’t seem to think it’s that big of a deal. They want to make it an
issue of nationality and global economics. So what if a company decides
to offer a tartan for less money made in Asia? If they can sell a kilt
for less, all the better! Some even suggest that those objecting to
such a practice do so for bigoted reasons, precisely because of the
countries where these items are made.
But those critics miss the point entirely. It wouldn’t matter if the
tartan was being produced in Scotland, America, Mexico, or Timbuktu.
The infraction here is one of intellectual property right. I suppose
people are used to thinking of tartan in terms of the traditional clan
tartans, some of which can be centuries old. The designers of these
tartans are typically lost in the fog of history, and these traditional
designs are considered public domain.
What the present controversies surrounding the Gold Brothers deals with
is another matter entirely. These are contemporary tartans, designed by
people in the tartan industry, craftsmen using their skill to create new
and successful designs. They have the right to protect their designs
and to make money from their work (and donate part of that to charity in
the case of the Diana tartan). When someone else produces and sells
that design without permission, they are essentially profiting off of
someone else’s work. Another word for that is thievery.
We may have come to expect this type of conduct in the cut-throat world
of big business. But to many of us tartan is something special. It
evokes a sense of heritage, or family, of tradition and pride. I’m sure
I’m not the only one who would like to see it treated as such on the
market.
PHOTO: Isle of Skye tartan, by Dave Tewksbury Photoimaging
