St. Kilda/Gaelic Themes/Scottishtartanstore

[The Wizard of BC]

I'm going to second what Rocky said and perhaps expand on it just a bit for our members.

OK, first of all, I'm a strange person. As some here may have noticed I am not a very good salesman. I have tried in the past to sell products made by someone else I just can't do it very well. It's just a weird trait of mine. If I offer something in my shop I made it or I personally know who did. I may not have met the person face to face but in almost every case I have spoken to them on the phone, via Skype, or exchanged multiple emails with them.
I guess this stems from two things. First, if something goes wrong I want to be able to speak to the person who made it to get it fixed. And second is that I am a maker. I appreciate the work of others who also create stuff. I like talking to them and getting to know them.

Now, a little background for our members. On my first business trip to Scotland I guess I was a proverbial "Babe in the woods" I guess I was expecting to meet the people who actually made the products I was thinking of carrying in my shop.
Much to my surprise this was not to be the case for many things that I was hoping to carry.

I remember meeting with one gentleman and being given a tour of his facility. I was introduced to the lady who stocked the racks and the lady who shipped product out. I was then shown the room where six guys were sitting in front of computers running the website.
But there was no manufacturing going on at all. This company, with one of the largest presences on the web, did not actually make anything themselves. They simply gathered together products from all over the world and sold them.
It was a masterful business plan. It probably took years to set up all the contacts and many hours per day to manage all the paperwork it took to keep this operation going.

I had just come two days before from another company where I was handed the actual mold from which the X Marks Crests are made. I saw just down the hall was the bagpipe factory with lathes and drill presses.
The difference was amazing to me. And it really opened my eyes to the reality of highland wear.

A few days later I walked, almost unannounced, into perhaps the largest maker of highland wear jackets in the UK. This was a teeny tiny shop tucked into a residential section of town.
Five people working in a shop half the size of my production room where two work. There were jackets of every size shape style and color piled everywhere. I saw one pile with an entire 80 person pipe bands jackets.
And I also noticed that there were bins on the wall with tags for over a dozen retail shops waiting to be sewn into jackets.
Just about every major retail shop I knew of at the time was represented by those bins of tags.

And then it finally sunk in when I visited perhaps the largest weaver of Tartan fabric in the world. During the factory tour you pass down a hall where the story of the fabric is detailed in photos and maps. If you think your Scottish Woven Tartan wool is made from Scottish grown sheep --- Well, sorry to bust your bubble. Most of the wool used in this factory is from sheep raised in Australia and New Zealand. Then the raw wool is transported all over the world. It is cleaned and fulled in one country, Spun into yarn in another country, Dyed in yet another, finally arriving at the weaving mill in Scotland where the actual fabric is woven. And this story of international travel does not stop there. The fabric still needs finishing, prepping, and any special treatment like brushing which is sometimes done in yet another country.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not casting aspersions on anyone nor am I belittling any company. What I'm trying to get across to you is that who made a particular item is not the most important thing. You being satisfied with the quality and price of a particular item you paid your hard earned dollars for is far more important than the name on the label in the jacket you just bought.

It is a fact in today's world that the chances that the product you buy is made 100% in any one country is very slim. Don't sweat it.
It is also a fact that there are very few places in the world that make kilt jackets. We all buy from the same few makers regardless who's label is sewn inside it.

If you are really interested in seeing one of the guys who actually make the Gaelic Themes jackets, if it is that important to you to know the maker, I can post a couple of photos from a few years ago.