One of the highlights of my recent research trip to Scotland was examining what is probably the only surviving jacket and waistcoat made from genuine St Kilda tweed.

The jacket and waistcoat, now housed in the Stornoway Museum, were made from a length of tweed purchased on St Kilda in 1930, just before the evacuation of the island's last residents. The cloth is believed to have been woven by Kirsty MacQueen, making it one of the final pieces of tweed ever produced on St Kilda.

The jacket and waistcoat were tailored by R.W. Forsyth Ltd, the renowned Glasgow tailoring firm established in 1872. Although the company began in Glasgow, the label indicates that this waistcoat was most probably made at their Princes Street store in Edinburgh, which opened in 1907.

The suit has another remarkable connection to Scottish history. Its distinctive horn buttons were made in Harris and presented to the original owner, the late Eric Cornish, by the celebrated Scottish author Compton Mackenzie (1883–1972), best known for Whisky Galore. His famous 1947 novel was inspired by the real-life wreck of the SS Politician off Eriskay in 1941, carrying its now legendary cargo of whisky.

This story took on even greater significance for me on Sunday when I visited The Horn Carver beside Loch Tay. After carefully examining photographs of the original buttons, he identified them as being made from stag horn. He is now crafting a set of fifteen buttons in the same style, which I will collect on Friday.

My hope is to have these fitted to a suit commissioned in the style of the Stornoway original, using the lengths of tweed I plan to weave on St Kilda in 2027 from hand-spun Soay and Boreray wool.

There is something rather special about the thought that, almost a century after the last St Kildans left their island, a new suit will once again be made from tweed woven on St Kilda itself—bringing another small part of the island's remarkable textile heritage back to life.