Harrisons of Edinburgh started in 1863 when Sir George Harrison, later Lord Provost of the city, bought an existing Edinburgh woollen merchant and put his own name on it. They have been merchants ever since. They do not run looms. They specify the cloth, have it woven in the UK, and sell it to tailors, and the thistle mark they adopted when they began exporting has been on their pieces since around 1900. The range is wide and the quality is steady, which is what you want from a merchant. What we spend most time on with Chennai customers is picking the right weight out of a book that was written mostly for a colder country.
Founded 1863, a merchant and not a mill
Sir George Harrison began as an apprentice to an Edinburgh tailor, went into business as a wool draper, and in 1863 bought out an established Edinburgh woollen merchant to found the firm that carries his name. He went on to become Lord Provost of Edinburgh. The business sat on North Bridge for the best part of a century before moving to Chambers Street in 1957.
Harrisons are a merchant house. That means they choose the fibre, set the construction and the finish, have the piece woven by mills in the UK, and put it in a bunch under their own name. They are not weaving it themselves. That is not a criticism. The best merchants have more range and more consistency than any single mill, because they can go to whichever weaver does a particular cloth best.
Exports started around 1900, and the thistle went on the selvedge and has stayed there. Lear Browne and Dunsford, an Exeter merchant founded in 1895, bought Harrisons in 1999 and made it the flagship of the group.
The names Harrisons now carries
Over the last thirty years the Harrisons group has gathered up several of the historic British merchant houses rather than letting them disappear. H. Lesser & Sons, long a favourite of the West End and City tailors. Smith Woollens, the London house that trademarked Solaro. W. Bill, known for tweeds and cashmeres. Porter & Harding, founded 1947, whose Scottish tweeds run from about 12oz up to 18oz. And Lear Browne & Dunsford itself.
This is worth knowing when you are looking at bunches. Several books that sit on a tailor's shelf under different names now come out of the same group, and knowing that saves you from paying twice for the same idea. It also means that if we find a cloth you like in one book, there is usually a cousin of it in another at a different weight.
Harrisons themselves are strongest in pure cashmere suitings, jacketings and coatings, and in fine merino worsteds. The cashmere is exceptional and it is also, for a Chennai wardrobe, almost entirely beside the point. We will come back to that.
Which Harrisons book makes sense here
Frontier is the one we open first. It is a superfine worsted merino at roughly 10 to 11oz, about 300 grams, woven in England, and it is billed as a year-round cloth. In Britain that means all four seasons. In Chennai it means a good office suit for an air-conditioned working life, and a very good suit for anyone who travels. It is not what we would put you in for an outdoor wedding in May.
Regency is lighter at around 9.5oz with a softer finish, which puts it closer to what this climate actually asks for while keeping enough body to hold a shoulder.
Mersolair is the interesting one for summer. It is a mohair and linen blend at a summer weight. Mohair is springy and has a slight sheen and does not hold heat the way wool does, and linen brings breathability and texture. It creases, and it is meant to. For a jacket in Chennai this is a much better idea than most people expect. Sea Breeze, their wool and linen book, works on the same logic.
The cashmere suitings, the overcoatings and the tweeds are cold-country cloths. Order those for travel, for a winter wedding up north, or for an overcoat you will use twice a year and be glad of. Do not order them for Chennai and hope.
Harrisons at our counter
The reason we keep coming back to Harrisons is breadth with a steady hand. When someone walks in with an odd brief, a jacket in an unusual colour, a lightweight formal cloth, a specific tweed for a trip, the answer is usually somewhere in the Harrisons group books.
We will not push the top of the range at you. A Frontier or a Regency in a plain navy or charcoal does the job for most working wardrobes in this city, and the money saved against a cashmere suiting is better spent on a second suit or a decent overcoat for when you travel.
Come in and we will lay the Harrisons pieces beside a tropical worsted and a high-twist so you can feel where each one sits. Weight is easier to understand in your hands than on a page.