The Saltire Gown, in the last two years you’ve probably seen her image – someplace. 

April of 2005 The Saltire Gown makes her debut as she graces the runway (and subsequently Scotland's media) during Tartan Week New York celebrations as worn by Kelly Cooper-Barr.  Men and women offer to buy her off Kelly's back!  In early May 2005, a photograph of The Saltire Gown supports a supplement in The Scotsman around the necessity to protect Scotland's intellectual property.  Later in the month, May Katie Targett-Adams models The Saltire Gown at Historic Scotland’s ‘fashions at Stirling Castle through the ages’.  The Saltire Gown then makes her Canadian debut in Toronto in October 2005 as requested by Scottish Executive to a special event they were hosting and subsequently wows an appreciative ex-pat audience. Photographers click madly as she makes her way down the catwalk at the beginning and the end of the event.  In December she’s back in New York for a reception at the American-Scottish Foundation, Scotland House, and one of the only five available globally is subsequently ordered to wear at a gala benefiting the staging of Shakespeare’s MacBeth.

January 2006, Miss Commonwealth Scotland Amanda-Jane Taylor specifically requests permission to wear The Saltire Gown at her crowing in July at London’s Palladium Theatre for the Miss Commonwealth International Beauty pageant.  Late March 2006, The Saltire Gown makes its diplomatic entrée in supporting the Scottish government’s new online magazine scotlandnow.  Less than a week later, a special insert to the New York Times features The Saltire Gown supporting Tartan Week New York.  In turn Thistle & Broom is asked by Scottish Executive if the Saltire Gown can be worn by at official functions following her appearance at a gala benefiting ScottishOPERA as part of Minnesota Tartan Day festivities.

Amanda-Jane Taylor won the Miss Commonwealth Scotland and Miss Commonwealth Charity International titles at Miss Commonwealth International. She looked fabulous in the Saltire Gown.

It would seem that we are well on our way to accomplishing what we set out to do - to honour and promote Scotland in a dramatic statement of couture fashion.  The Saltire Gown might well be our most visible, but she is hardly alone in celebrating the small, but exquisite (and growing) collections of the very best of which Scotland has to offer as available through Thistle & Broom.  

Okay, I can hear you asking - ‘what’ is Thistle & Broom?  Perhaps starting with a couple of examples of what people perceive Thistle & Broom to be would be in order.

‘Scotland is much like the Lady of the Lake of Arthurian legend, for centuries lying barely submerged in the quelling hold of her history. The challenge of resuming her singular ethnic character and national identity has been catalyzed by the creation of Thistle & Broom.  Thank you for all your efforts in helping Scotland realise her very special destiny.’

Margaret Lauren Macdonell-Sanchez, Miami Florida

‘I came across your company in an AP article in my paper's business section. I was intrigued with your business model and logged on. What I found was a website and products so stunning that they truly did evoke the feeling of Scotland (no small task)… I have been to Scotland three times and immediately upon touching the soil, I begin scheming about when and how I'm going to return. … I wanted to let you know I greatly admire what you have done. … Congratulations to you for what you have accomplished. Just the fact that I feel compelled to write this email and feel a personal connection with you shows the success that is your business model and website. As my 4-year-old would say, 'rock on!'

Sherri Ramaker, Sauk City, Wisconsin

There is no place on Earth which has ever consistently inspired me to stop, take a deep breath and sigh out loud in wonder - as Scotland. 

To properly frame my relationship with Scotland you must understand that I put off visiting for 17 years because at some visceral level I knew that in doing so my life would fundamentally change forever.  My first trip is memorable for a thousand reasons but most critically for what happened as I sat on The Flying Scotsman bound for Edinburgh from London.  Bucolic landscapes slip pass the window in the late November drizzle, quite suddenly my palms began to perspire, my heart pounded, my throat caught, my eyes filled up with tears, I wondered, reasonably so under the circumstances, if I had put off coming to Scotland because I was destined to die there!  There was no physical explanation as the tea was my own decaf. A short time later a lovely septuagenarian man approached and enquired if I am "luvin' Scotlan' verre much ahze we' bin 'arye bout three minoots lass", my sincere apologies to every Scotsman or woman reading this passage.  It started like this, physically knowing before my brain could comprehend. Everything about Scotland is like this; places familiar without basis.  I have always believed (even as an Episcopalian) in the Presbyterian concept of preordination; that our lives, and our greatest life’s work, are structured by the Divine.  We can attempt to deny or avoid it but inevitably whatever it is will seek us out and make it impossible for us to ignore what we are ‘supposed to do’. 

What I feel for Scotland is the sense of hopelessness one ‘enjoys’ in loving fiercely.  Each day Scotland courses through my veins demanding my capitulation and utter surrender, she is unrelenting in driving me ever deeper into an inescapable and unrequited love that few will ever understand.  Is it madness to love a place rather than a person to such an extent? To the uninitiated how can you explain the scent of Highland winds caressing broom and pine, lifting the scent of seaweed from upon the shore, of crystalline waters cascading in frothy white and peat coloured ribbons over rock, moss and heather and heath? Air so pure you can taste it? Drive through a stand of Caledonian Pine in Wester-Ross with her ancient forested mountains looming against a sky filled with snowflakes as angels feathers fall or along hairpin roads on the Isle of Harris with lichen covered granite boulders only to surmount a rise in the road to face the pure white sand beach and azure waters of Luskentyre.  Scotland is a land of contrasts and infinite beauty.

But what spurred me onto to embrace my life’s work was, in a single word, inequity.

Following my first trip in November of 2002 I became obsessed with all encompassing research about Scotland.  The average tourists’ stay in Scotland is a mere three days.  35,000 textile jobs were lost to consolidation and Far East competition in a decade – just think of the ripple effect such has against a population of 4.5 million people.  Income disparities between the central belt cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh and the Highlands and Islands; the fact that the British Government pegs poverty at £19,000 per annum (family of four) whereas Scottish Executive and the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) maintain that the average artist in Scotland earns a mere £9,000 per annum (same family of four). Further, again according to the SAC), that not one artist under the age of 35 can earn a living at their art – meaning they have to do something else to support themselves other than focus on their core competency of creating beauty.  All of this bothered me enormously, and I set about doing something about it.

In all my research I discovered something truly astonishing, while England has Asprey and Burberry, France Hermes, Italy Brioni, Gucci and Fendi, and Germany Escada how is it that no one had ever thought to establish a definitive luxury brand of products made exclusively in Scotland?  How many others desirous of exquisite products made in Scotland or in visiting Scotland would experience frustration in not being able to find some illusive object of desire, or the perfect ‘guilt’ gift in exchange for that week of golf at St. Andrew’s? To be able to say, “You have to wait but I ordered something truly special for you from Scotland”, heroes and heroines are made of much less.  My newfound passion for Scotland was about to gain wings as I set out to create the definitive source for luxury from Scotland – with a twist.  My venture would be Fair Trade modelled (33% mark-up on more 90% of the offerings) with each purchase having a specific beneficiary charitable organisation in Scotland, The John Muir Trust being our first.  Finally, I would dispense with the brick and mortar store front and with warehousing (thus eliminating overhead costs).   Along the way to launching Thistle & Broom accountants would ask ‘how are you getting to 19,000 units a month?’ For those interested to know Thistle & Broom will never be about commodity sales, everything will always be made to order, with all the intensity and passion Scotland’s inspired artisans can muster.

The original Saltire Gown was commissioned from Glaswegian couturier Spencer Railton as a one-off for Thistle & Broom's official launch.  He was given creative license but confined to use our exclusive St. Andrew’s Cross, Adapted lap rug in his creation and I wanted it to be for ‘a saucy Scottish wench’.  For Spencer’s part he knew he wanted the gown to be representative of the Thistle & Broom brand-luxurious, unique and a definite 'Headliner.' Along the way we somehow managed to create a glorious statement of national pride, an icon that seems to evoke 'bragging rights' for Scots the world over.

Whether you are about to make your first visit or your hundredth, as soon as you come home to Scotland you’ll intuitively understand Scott, and Burns and Stephenson – she’ll provide you with all the awe and inspiration that could be captured by a thousand lines of poetry. Moreover, Scotland could make you alter the course of your life forever as she has with me. 

Teresa Fritschi is the Managing Director and Chief Creative Officer of the Edinburgh-based e-commerce initiative called Thistle & Broom, Limited. Her award winning website http://www.thistleandbroom.com offers extraordinary, often one-of-a-kind and bespoke luxurious products culled from across Scotland. 8% of Thistle & Broom, Ltd’s pre-tax profits endow carefully selected charitable organizations, which serve to preserve, protect or restore an element of Scotland's culture, history or wild spaces.

View the gown at
http://www.thistleandbroom.com/shopping/apparel/wool/saltire-gown.htm