As you know if you've been keeping up with the
Great Coat Meltdown 2018 I purchased two coat-and-skirt outfits from Brora last week in a fit of dissatisfaction with my poorly fitted, papery thin, cheapie "wool" coats.
Today let's discuss the
Brora coat and skirt tailored from this really amazing Harris Tweed wool.
If you're not familiar with Harris Tweed you can read about it
here, and I can tell you that maintaining the integrity of Harris Tweed is a serious business.
You can see that the interior of my coat, above, is stamped with the Harris Tweed Authority and their Orb Mark. This Authority (established by an act of Parliament in 1993) protects and maintains the industry, inspecting the cloth in 50m lots in order to maintain its authenticity.
I first came across Harris Tweed as menswear. MrBP owns several Harris Tweed jackets and it is the most sturdy, hard-wearing, rain-repelling, cozy warm, long-lasting fabric ever.
The wool is sourced in Scotland from Cheviot and Scottish Blackface sheep. The process of finishing the wool is a careful one, inspected along the way and resulting in purity of the fabric, a 100% virgin wool.
It is so tightly woven and warm, it can stand up to winters in Northern Scotland as well as Canada. It is perfectly suited to an outdoor lifestyle. So for it then to be made up into charming coat and skirt outfits? Dream come true. THANK YOU BRORA.
Brora tailors their coats and skirts/trousers in England, as you can see from this interior stamp:
How about some details? I love the sturdy little metal loops sewn inside the coats so they can be hung up on hooks if needed:
The interior has a lovely warm lining of cupro and viscose, and you can see a detail of the interior pocket and the surrounding structured piping.
Here is the website photo of the coat worn rather casually with a simple outfit underneath.
I'll be wearing mine with the co-ordinating skirt and a plain black sweater, it's such a warm and easy outfit. I wore this all day Thursday when it hovered around the freezing mark:
The coat has a perfect structured fit throughout the shoulders, a lovely lapel which can be buttoned to the top if needed and a perfect length to match the skirt:
The skirt itself has a zipper and button fastening at the back and these cute front pockets. It is a straight skirt but not constricting. This is important for me because I do a lot of walking and I'm often in a hurry, no tight pencil-type skirts thank you.
I really love this outfit with this bright Hermes scarf in various shades of red, accented by blues. The tweed itself has flecks of mustard gold, red and a distinctive blue. It is a neutral black yet colourful at the same time.
I have another scarf in shades of mustard, white and black which suits it perfectly. On a really cold day it can be paired with a cashmere or wool scarf, and a turtleneck, to up the warm factor.
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| The Harris Tweed complimented by a Hermes Maxi Twilly. |
I'll hardly be taking this outfit off my back for the remainder of the winter, except of course to wear the second coat-and-skirt outfit I purchased from Brora, which I'll show you tomorrow.
I'll be wearing this one today, it is a lovely sunny day, and at just above freezing it feels balmy. We're planning to walk several kilometres by the river with Scout and maybe have a pub lunch.
Have a fun Saturday, I hope you can make the most of it.
xoxDani
