Cloth of gold
Lively parts of a near-dead industry
AFTER three decades of gloom, this week brought a rare good news story for the British textile industry: Nike, a big sports-shoe maker, ordered 9,500 metres of Harris Tweed for a new range of women's trainers. Aside from the odd idea of a tweed trainer, the story is not as unusual as it sounds: although the British textile industry as a whole continues to shrink, at the top of the market a lot of small and medium-sized companies are making a good living and big reputations.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Cloth of gold”
From the June 26th 2004 edition
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