Dir. of Scottish Tartan Authority Criticizes Edinburgh Shops

[Retro Red]

Graeme of Arizona Kilts showed me this article last week except his print-out had a couple pics of the price tags. On these price tags they were not only using the old sales ploy of showing the "original" price & then the "marked down to" price to make you think you were getting some great bargain, but very deceptively the tag said, "Fashioned in Scotland". Notice, not "Made in Scotland", but "Fashioned in Scotland" - in other words, they're trying to deceive people into believing this is a kilt made in Scotland when in reality it most likely was made by some poorly paid woman or child in Pakistan. (Can you say sweat-shop?)

What a shame that these cheap knock-offs are hurting the Scottish kilt industry, as the last 2 paragraphs show, but that this would be taking place on Scotland's most prestigious boulevard, the Royal Mile, is tragic & a travesty!
.

[Presuming Ed]

... but that this would be taking place on Scotland's most prestigious boulevard, the Royal Mile, is tragic & a travesty!

Don't really think that the Royal Mile is "Scotland's most prestigious boulevard" by a long chalk; it's always had a significant number of shops selling tourist tat. The New Town is much nicer - George St has a much, much higher collection of upmarket shops.

[davedove]

What Matt Says is right. It's not so much the selling of the cheap kilts. After all, it is a free market and everything has it's place. It's the misrepresentation that's the problem.

they're trying to deceive people into believing this is a kilt made in Scotland when in reality it most likely was made by some poorly paid woman or child in Pakistan. (Can you say sweat-shop?)

It doesn't even have to be sweat shop conditions. It could be a perfectly reasonable shop that pays the equivalent of 50 cents an hour, which while it seems slave wages to us, would actually be a phenomenal wage in Pakistan, where the minimum wage is about 25 cents an hour. We have to be careful about using the sweat shop label. While I'm sure they exist, for the most part it's just different standards of living that cause the cheaper labor.

[McClef]

I should also point out that such establishments as these are not just limited to the Royal Mile, they can also be found in the Princes/George St area.