---
title: "Harris Tweed, Prince of Wales Check and Balmoral Tartan: The British Cloths Built by Islanders and Kings"
description: "Harris Tweed, Prince of Wales check, Balmoral tartan, Fair Isle and houndstooth: the heritage, the royal connections and how to wear each one today."
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-10-22T13:04:50.814Z
updated: 2026-10-22T13:04:50.820Z
canonical: https://www.richmanmagazine.com/article/harris-tweed-prince-of-wales-check-balmoral-tartan-british-cloths
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-30475150.webp
categories: Lifestyle
content_type: Feature
region: United Kingdom
publication: Rich Dad Magazine
schema_type: Article
---
Britain's most famous menswear cloths were not designed in fashion houses. They came from crofts, estates and fishing islands, and they became famous when aristocrats and royals started wearing them. Here are five, with the facts behind each and how to wear them now.
## 1. Harris Tweed: the cloth with its own Act of Parliament
Harris Tweed is the only fabric in the world protected by its own Act of Parliament. The Harris Tweed Act 1993 created the Harris Tweed Authority, a statutory body that guards the name and the cloth against imitation. Under the Act, Harris Tweed must be 'hand woven by the islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides, finished in the Outer Hebrides, and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides'.
*Photo: Photo: furkanfdemir / Pexels*
In practice, that means three conditions. The cloth is woven by hand in the weaver's own home or croft. Every stage, from dyeing and spinning to finishing, happens on the islands of Lewis, Harris, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist and Barra. And the wool must be pure virgin wool, dyed and spun locally.
Every 50 metres of finished cloth is inspected by the Harris Tweed Authority and stamped by hand with the Orb, the certification mark first registered in 1909. If a jacket carries the Orb label, you can trace its cloth back to the Outer Hebrides.
The modern trade began in 1846, when Catherine Murray, Countess of Dunmore, whose family owned the North Harris estate, had local weavers copy the Murray family tartan in tweed and began selling the cloth to her friends in society. Demand spread from there. Output peaked at 7.6 million yards in 1966, fell to around 500,000 metres by 2008 and recovered to more than one million metres in 2012. The looms are still powered by the weaver's feet rather than electricity.
**How to wear it:** a Harris Tweed jacket in a brown or green herringbone works over a roll-neck, an open-necked shirt or a knit, with flannel trousers or dark jeans. It is heavy enough to replace a coat on a dry autumn day.
## 2. Prince of Wales check: the estate cloth a king made famous
The pattern officially recorded as the Glenurquhart Estate Check began in the Highlands in the 1840s. The Countess of Seafield adopted the bold black-and-white check to dress the gamekeepers on her estate in Glen Urquhart, near Loch Ness.
*Photo: Photo: cottonbro studio / Pexels*
When the future Edward VII visited the estate as Prince of Wales, he liked the cloth enough to have his own clothes made from it, in a smaller, softer version. His tailor, Henry Poole of Savile Row, also dressed the Seafield household. The pattern took the prince's name, and his grandson, Edward VIII, later added coloured overchecks and made it popular in the United States. Today, the version without an overcheck is usually called a glen check, while one with a coloured overcheck is a Prince of Wales check.
The French call it 'prince de Galles' and the Italians 'principe di Galles', but the cloth is Scottish, not Welsh.
**How to wear it:** a grey Prince of Wales suit is formal enough for a board meeting. Worn as separates, the jacket works with grey flannel or navy trousers, and the trousers with a navy blazer.
## 3. Balmoral tartan: the cloth you cannot wear
Prince Albert designed the Balmoral tartan in the 1850s for the royal family's Highland estate. Its grey and red sett is meant to echo the granite of the Deeside hills.
*Photo: Photo: Valentin Ivantsov / Pexels*
The Balmoral tartan may be worn only by members of the royal family and, with the monarch's permission, the sovereign's personal piper.
**How to wear tartan instead:** if you want to wear tartan, choose the tartan of a clan or district connected to your family name or region, or one of the many universal tartans, such as Black Watch, which anyone may wear. A tartan scarf or a pair of trews for a Burns Night dinner is the easiest place to begin.
## 4. Fair Isle: the knit a prince put on the golf course
Fair Isle knitting comes from the small island of the same name, between Orkney and Shetland. Its bands of small, repeating patterns are knitted in a few colours at a time, two to a row.
*Photo: Photo: Nida Kurt / Pexels*
It became fashionable in the early 1920s, when Edward, Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII, began wearing Fair Isle jumpers, including on the golf course. A 1925 portrait shows him in one. Within a few years, Fair Isle knitwear had spread from the islands to sportswear and city wardrobes across Britain and America.
**How to wear it:** a Fair Isle jumper or tank top works under a tweed jacket or over a plain shirt at weekends. Choose one with a muted background and two or three colours that match the rest of your wardrobe.
## 5. Houndstooth: the shepherd's check that went to town
Houndstooth, or dogstooth, began as a woollen cloth woven in the Scottish Lowlands in the 19th century, part of the same family of shepherd's checks as the Glen Urquhart. Its broken check, which resembles a row of small pointed teeth, comes from a simple twill weave in two colours.
It moved from shepherds' plaids into country tailoring and then into city suits and coats. Today, it appears in menswear and womenswear alike.
**How to wear it:** a small black-and-white or brown-and-cream houndstooth jacket reads as a solid colour from a distance, which makes it easy to pair. Keep everything else plain.
## Buying the real thing
Check the label. Genuine Harris Tweed carries the Orb, and the Harris Tweed Authority takes legal action against products that misuse the name. For other cloths, look for the mill and the country of weaving: British mills in Scotland and Yorkshire still produce tweeds, checks and knitwear to traditional standards.
Buy fewer pieces, made better. A well-made tweed jacket or check suit can last decades, and each of these cloths has already proved it can outlast a trend.