Islander Takes Harris Tweed Workshops Into Covent Garden

Islander opened its first shop outside Scotland at 29 Short’s Gardens in Covent Garden, a Harris Tweed bag workshop on a tourist street. A second site on Bloomsbury Street, near the British Museum, is still scheduled for later in 2026.

The Edinburgh brand now lists ten locations. Eight are in Edinburgh, one is in St Andrews, and the London room is built for up to 28 guests a session, seven days a week. The overlooked party is smaller than that shop floor: about 160 home weavers in the Outer Hebrides, the only people UK law allows to make the cloth on the lid.

The Covent Garden Shop Puts the Workshop in Front

Design studio Dalziel and Pow, posting on 30 July 2026, said it designed Islander’s first London store just off Seven Dials. Signature satchels sit with shoes and accessories in Harris Tweed, leather and tartan, in earthy tones and rich greens, with a workshop of moveable tables at the centre of the room.

The company’s own directory now lists ten stores and workshops on its site. Edinburgh holds the flagship at 95 West Bow, two Candlemaker Row addresses, Stockbridge, The Arches, Canongate, a Satchel Kit Store on East Market Street, and a shop-and-cafe on Marshall Street. St Andrews is at 120 Market Street. London is the Covent Garden workshop at 29 Short’s Gardens, WC2H 9AP.

Tim Graveling, creative director at Dalziel and Pow, said the Covent Garden room “leans on the brand’s strong focus on craft and materials” and is “as much about co-creation and storytelling as it is about shopping.” Soft projections about Harris Tweed, bag drawings and wall murals point people toward that making space, and there are dedicated stops for straps and a charm bar so a bag can be changed after the session.

That is a holiday activity copied from Edinburgh, not a quiet fashion salon. Guests pick a body, a lid and straps, then put the bag together with staff and leave with it. The cloth on a typical lid still has to come from island looms. If the second London shop copies the same floor plan, two capital-city rooms will be asking for that cloth every day of the week.

160 Weavers Have to Supply the New London Shop

Harris Tweed is not a mill-floor fabric that can be doubled with a night shift. The Harris Tweed Authority, the statutory body created by the 1993 Act, says the cloth must be handwoven by the islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides, finished there, and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun there. Inspectors stamp the Orb mark only when that test is met.

We oversee the production and inspection of the cloth from start to finish. Only when satisfied that the article is genuinely deserving of our historic Orb will we brand the cloth with the certification mark.

Fiona Mackenzie, CEO, Harris Tweed Authority

A 2024 assessment for the Authority, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, carried out by BiGGAR Economics, put output at 572,800 double-width metres, with almost 98% of that cloth woven in Lewis. It counted 150 self-employed weavers contracted by the mills and 10 independent weavers, 160 people in all, all of them in the Outer Hebrides.

HARRIS TWEED IN 2024

Those island jobs generated £16.8 million in Scottish value added, with £11.0 million and 370 jobs retained in the Outer Hebrides. Islander is one buyer among jacket mills, fashion houses and small makers, and its bags also use leather and Lochcarron tartan, so not every lid is tweed. The brand still sells itself on Harris Tweed, and in October 2025 it said it held an exclusive partnership to make handbags, footwear and accessories from the cloth.

The stiffness that puts some buyers off a jacket is the same quality that holds a satchel flap and a shoe. Menswear writer Derek Guy calls Harris Tweed among the coarsest and scratchiest of the tweeds because of the wool in it, and that is a fair reading of a jacket against the skin. It is a poorer reading of a bag lid, which is built to be handled, not worn. The cloth also lasts; one reply to Guy pointed to jackets still in use after 30 years. A workshop that sends people out of Covent Garden with a tweed lid is, in that sense, a better match for what the islands actually spin than a city blazer.

Pei Ferguson Put London Ahead of New York

Pei Ferguson founded the firm in 2010 as Snow Paw UK, selling Harris Tweed footwear and accessories, and renamed it Islander UK in 2020. Company number SC731424 still sits on the site footer. The first Edinburgh shop was on Victoria Street, now the West Bow flagship, and the first workshop was a small room above a shop.

FROM SNOW PAW TO SHORT’S GARDENS

1. 2010: Ferguson founds Snow Paw UK in Edinburgh on Harris Tweed footwear and accessories.
2. 2020: The business becomes Islander UK.
3. After Covid: Headcount falls to six staff.
4. October 2025: Bank of Scotland backing is cited as the firm employs 55 people, runs eight Edinburgh shops plus St Andrews, and confirms a London store for the next year.
5. July 2026: The Covent Garden store and workshop opens at 29 Short’s Gardens.
6. Later in 2026: A second London store on Bloomsbury Street, near the British Museum, is scheduled.

Speaking when the London plan was announced, Ferguson said the first workshop was then only three years old. She also said New York had been the dream, because the firm already had 150 wholesale stockists in the United States and strong tartan and Harris Tweed sales, and that London came first so the next step could be run from home. By the Covent Garden opening, launch material put the wholesale net at more than 800 retail stockists worldwide, a wider count than the 150 US names from the year before.

We’ve seen our business grow from our first Edinburgh shop to stores right across Scotland, and now it’s a very proud moment to open our first London flagship. Islander has always been about blending heritage with innovation, and our growth and expansion shows how much our brand is resonating with people. Dalziel and Pow’s design for our beautiful Covent Garden store invites visitors to become part of our story, to get closer to the craft, create and connect.

Pei Ferguson, Company Director, Islander

She calls it a flagship. The floor plan still says workshop. In June 2026 the firm also put a Spirit of Brazil Harris Tweed bag and footwear range on show in Miami beside a ball billed as the world’s oldest football, which keeps the American thread alive even while London is being bedded in.

What Customers Make in a 60-Minute Session

The session is short on purpose. Guests do not weave, sew or glue. They choose parts and assemble a bag with staff, then walk out with it, which is why a room off Seven Dials can run seven days a week without a loom on the floor. Islander’s own journal, posting after the opening, framed the move as bringing its workshop experience to the capital.

THE COVENT GARDEN SESSION

• The body: Guests pick the bag body they want to build.
• The lid: The lid is Harris Tweed or Lochcarron tartan, which is the visible Scottish cloth on the finished piece.
• The straps: Front straps, a body strap and a crossbody strap are chosen next.
• The build: Staff guide the assembly; there is no sewing or gluing in the hour.
• The exit: Guests leave with the bag, and the room is set for photographs and sharing.

The Covent Garden room holds up to 28 people a session. If even a fraction of those lids are Harris Tweed, a full week in London is a steady extra order for mills that still send yarn out to croft houses and wait for cloth to come back. The weavers’ constraint does not show up on a booking screen, which is the point of putting the making on Short’s Gardens and the weaving on Lewis.

Cardnet Savings Helped Pay for Sighthill

The bank story that travelled in October 2025 was operational, not romantic. Bank of Scotland said a switch to its Cardnet merchant services cut card processing costs by about £40,000 a year, and that those savings helped fund a larger warehouse at Sighthill. Moving payroll onto Commercial Banking Online automated pay for 55 staff and, Ferguson said, gave her back time to grow the firm.

Ross Penman, a relationship manager at Bank of Scotland, said Islander showed “how a Scottish brand can innovate and use its heritage to capture opportunities,” and that the growth sat on “creativity, exceptional customer experience and a strong commercial focus.” Ferguson, in the same remarks, said the bank had helped the firm save money, invest in the warehouse and tidy its operations, “freeing me to focus on what I love which is growing the business, connecting with customers and taking our brand from Edinburgh to the world.”

From six people after Covid to 55 in October 2025, with a stated aim of at least 70 within three years of that count, the payroll is a shop and warehouse story. The cloth payroll is separate, self-employed, and capped by who still keeps a loom at home. A cheaper card rate does not add a weaver in Bravas or Port Ness.

Bloomsbury Street Comes Next, Then Maybe New York

Dalziel and Pow said it is also working on a second London store on Bloomsbury Street, near the British Museum, due later in 2026. That address is not on Islander’s live store list, which still shows a single London workshop at Short’s Gardens. Ferguson’s New York plan remains a later leap, to be run only once London is close enough to manage from Edinburgh.

WHAT WE KNOW

• Covent Garden: The store and workshop at 29 Short’s Gardens is open and bookable.
• The estate: The company lists ten locations, with workshops in Edinburgh, St Andrews and London.
• The cloth rule: Genuine Harris Tweed still has to be woven in island homes and stamped with the Orb.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Bloomsbury timing: A later-2026 opening was announced in July, with no public opening date since.
• New York: Ferguson still describes it as a later step, with no site or date.
• Headcount now: The last firm figure is 55 staff in October 2025, with 70 still a target from that baseline.

Two London workshops would put Harris Tweed lids in front of museum crowds and Seven Dials shoppers without moving a single loom south. The people who have to keep pace still live on Lewis and Harris, and the Act that protects their cloth is the same Act that stops anyone else from helping them.