Luxury Scarves by Duchamp and Begg Scotland
The cold wind whipping off the Firth of Clyde makes Ayr a very appropriate place in which to make beautiful, warm scarves. The west of Scotland town is not renowned for its textiles apart from the gem that is Alex Begg & Company, the maker of some of the finest luxury scarves in the world.
Renowned as a supplier of exquisite accessories to some of the best brands globally, Begg of Ayr has been supplying Duchamp with its cashmere, lambswool, angora, merino and virgin wool scarves since 2002.It’s a perfect match as Begg revels in the design and manufacture of complicated yet delicate stripes and checks in many colours.
It’s a surprise to learn that Begg’s luxurious scarves are woven, rather than knitted, as knitted scarves are so familiar. Begg, however, is high-quality specialist and it knows its business. As is typical of Duchamp’s Scottish partners, the company blends more than a century of tradition with the most modern production equipment, dovetailing computer-controlled machinery with the most skilful handwork of its artisan employees. Around 30% of the production process involved human hands and eyes on the cloth.
Alexander Begg began the company in 1869 in Paisley, just west of Glasgow, making the exotically-patterned shawls that were all the rage for Victorian ladies. (Paisley even gave its name to the now iconic pattern, which actually originated in northern India.) Begg relocated to the main town of Ayrshire in 1902, in order to expand, investing in technological advancements and developments in weaving techniques and machinery. The move also permitted Begg to take advantage of the plentiful supplies of soft, pure water that is an essential ingredient of producing the luscious accessories.
The Duchamp scarves are created in collaboration between the brand’s own design team and the scarf experts at Begg. Fine qualities of angora/ lambswool, or merino wool or virgin wool are selected and are dyed to match Duchamp’s requirements for the season. Typically, there is anything up to fifteen colours in each scarf. Until almost the end of the production process, the individual scarves and stoles are kept together in one long run of cloth. This “piece”, to use the weaver’s jargon, is 50 metres long and 1.5m wide. The classic men’s scarves from Duchamp measure either 31cm wide and 172cm long or 35cm wide and 180cm long. Some have traditional long fringes, others a neat border. Duchamp also has a delightful jacquard pattern of a large bloom in the current autumn-winter season collection.
To weave these fabulous creations at Begg, the long warp yarns are arranged in sequence by being wound round a huge wooden drum. The dozens of cones of coloured yarn are arranged on a warping frame, which looks like a large climbing apparatus. These warps form the lengthwise threads of the finished item. The width-wise yarns of the weft are introduced under and over, under and over, the warp threads on modern computer-controlled looms that chatter with a staccato beat. The steady, inexorable progress of the cloth as it slowly comes off the loom is strangely hypnotic to watch. The marvellous pattern literally emerges before your eyes.
During the weaving process, the movement of the weft is interrupted to allow the creation of the decorative fringe at the ends of the scarf. After the 50m piece has been taken off the loom, the long loose warp threads are twisted together – or purled – on a clever machine that does the twisting automatically and precisely. By this stage in the proceedings, the cloth has already been minutely examined by keen-eyed workers at least twice. Any tiny imperfections such as knots in the yarn or tiny holes are invisibly mended by nimble fingers.
While the scarf cloth may be starting to look good, it certainly does not feel as if it’s made from a rare, supersoft fibre like cashmere. Oils are added to the cashmere, angora and lambswool yarns to assist getting them through the warping and weaving without breaking. The washing, or scouring, process that removes these oils and softens the cloth is one of the most closely-guarded stages of production at Begg. After being washed and spun almost dry, the damp cloth is lowered into a small box called a stocks machine in which it is pounded by two hydraulically operated blocks to disrupt the structure of the weave and to make the yarns sit more closely together, to look less like a regular weave.
After this, the long piece of cloth is brushed or “raised” to stimulate and lengthen the surface fibres or nap. The process involves it being passed between two large revolving drums that are covered with delicate metal brushes called teasels. Different adjustments in speed of the rotation of the drum and position of the brushes are made to suit the lightness of the original fibres and the desired fluffiness. Both the face and the back of the cloth are “raised” simultaneously on the machine.
(For special heavyweight cashmere scarves and throws, Begg also has a secret process that uses not metallic brushes, but natural teasels – which look similar to dried thistles – to tease up the surface even more. It’s reassuring to realise that no man-made substitute beats nature’s own fine brush.)
With the surface raised, the cloth passes through a large dryer called a stenter. The heat dries out the cloth and also “fixes” its width. Then comes yet another inspection in which any tiny foreign body or irregularity is removed with a pair of tweezers. As any impurity is likely to be very small, this is called “picking” or “specking” as the checker is literally picking out specks. Both sides of the cloth are checked in this painstaking manner.
After another visual inspection, the cloth – which by now definitely looks and feels like a luxury scarf – is given a press which gives it the upmarket sheen we associate with these fine accessories. The scarves are now cut lengthwise to the desired width on a slitting machine. Sharp rotating blades run up the “stitcher” gap, which was created during the weaving on the loom.
In a speedy flourish, a pair of shears is wielded for the hand cross-cutting which sees the fringes trimmed and the individual scarves or shawls at last separated. The knotty thread at the bottom of the fringe is the only bit of trimmed cloth that is not recycled because it is formed of tightly sewn cotton thread around the precious fibres and separating is a practical impossibility.
Once the labels have been sewn on, the beautifully soft, delicious-to-the-touch scarves are folded, packed and despatched to the waiting world. A scarf may not be a major purchase in any one’s wardrobe, but a Duchamp scarf from Alex Begg & Company deserves special attention this autumn-winter season. Its ethereal quality, and the delight it gives to the senses, is very addictive.
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