A GLORIOUS TWELFTH FOR PRINGLE
This year’s Glorious Twelfth will mean something different to one Scottish company, even if it is a day that the local game birds won’t much fancy. In a move that will stir memories of Argyles and twinsets, Pringle of Scotland has chosen August 12 as a “day of record” at its headquarters in Hawick in the Scottish Borders. It is part of the company’s effort to build a proper archive – an Antiques Roadshow-type public open day, during which they are appealing to people to bring in sweaters, photographs, anecdotes and memorabilia connected with the company’s 195-year history.
It is an intelligent idea that has more integrity than a calculated publicity stunt. Mary-Adair Macaire, Pringle’s CEO, has handed over the research project to academics – but with a twist that will have a future fashion pay-off. Alistair O’Neill, who heads a curatorial degree course at Central Saint Martins, will deploy his students to catalogue Pringle’s existing collection to museum standards, and set them to work ferreting out more evidence in the form of adverts, magazine articles, knitting patterns and press photographs. Along with the donations and verbal accounts gleaned on August 12, it is hoped that a coherent picture of Pringle’s claim to fame in golfing sweaters and twinsets will begin to emerge.
It is possible that one of the leads might end up in a royal archive. It was that snappy dresser, the Duke of Windsor, who first made Pringle Argyles de rigueur for golf. The twinset – a term supposedly coined by Pringle – meanwhile, simultaneously became the upper-crust lady’s standby from the Thirties to the Sixties, worn by Margot Fonteyn, Grace Kelly and countless others. The fashion twist in the tale is that Central Saint Martins Masters fashion students will also be designing Pringle sweaters for their degree collections next February.