IF YOU have seen pictures of Prince Charles in a kilt or the Queen's tartan skirt, you can rest assured the garment was hand-made by Kinloch Anderson. The 140-year-old Highland outfitter wears its treble of royal warrants with pride – one from the Queen, one from her husband and one from her son.
As with many specialist Highland wear companies, it is a small, family-owned business. For years, the company has been run by Douglas Kinloch Anderson – the fifth Kinloch Anderson to run the company – and his sprightly wife Deirdre. Both are n 70, an
d they have passed the reins to their youngest son, John Kinloch Anderson, 37, and Nick Bannerman – the first non- family chief executive to head the company.
Kinloch Anderson the younger and Bannerman will run the company together – the former as deputy chairman until his father really does retire.
The youngest of the Kinloch Anderson's children, John jokes he wasn't the "last resort" to head the family business, before he takes a moment's thought. "Well, maybe I am the last resort," he says with a laugh.
Under the advice of the company's non-executive director Sir Andrew Cubie, Douglas, Deirdre and John had to figure out how the business would run in the future.
The new management structure, another duo to replace Douglas and Deirdre's husband and wife team, was deliberately chosen to play to John's strengths. "We have looked at succession planning, which has always been an issue with family companies," says John Kinloch Anderson. "But neither my brother or sister work in the company.
"Looking at the range of activity, it was just going to be me on my own. It looked like a tall order. We would have had to restructure the company."
Instead, they set out to search for someone from outside the family. The candidate would probably have experience of the textiles industry and a knack for exploiting brands. Luckily, the Scottish textiles industry is, forgive the pun, a close-knit one.
They found Bannerman, a chartered accountant who, for the past seven years, had been running the golfer's favourite, Hawick-based cashmere company Peter Scott. He has been with Kinloch since 2007 and has now stepped up to senior level.
The business is small but varied. Although Deirdre is 70, she can still heft a big leather portfolio nearly the same size as she is to show the corporate names for which Kinloch has designed tartans. There's one they designed for The Scotsman, an attractive navy with a heather purple stripe. Others include the Institute of Directors, Glenlivet, Irn-Bru (which, of course, has a girder-orange colour in it) and the Commonwealth Games.
While Kinloch Anderson is well known in Scotland and London as a high-end Highland dress company, there is more to it than just its combined factory and shop in Leith, where a small team of experienced kiltmakers machine bolts of tartan into products for sale in the shop.
Overseas, particularly in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Kinloch Anderson is a a luxury clothing brand to rival Burberry, Daks and Armani, albeit on a smaller scale. The company has 300 shops and concessions in the Far East and the United States.
These are managed through licence agreements, established by Douglas in the 1970s and 1980s when the fashion world went wild for Kinloch's range of ladies' tartan skirts. At the time, Kinloch was exporting to Asia, until Douglas noticed the export tide was turning.
"In the late 1980s, manufacturing was becoming tougher," explains John Kinloch Anderson. "Douglas, when he was travelling out there and looking at what other brands were doing, thought the next stage was to evolve the company and go into having brand partners in some of these markets."
The first licensing partnership was established in Japan and then replicated in Taiwan, South Korea, China and the US. Now the company works with 25 to 30 licence holders who manage stores and make goods to Kinloch's exacting standards.
The day after John and Bannerman speak to The Scotsman, the president of the South Korean licence company – that is a particularly strong market – was due to visit Leith.
The outlets abroad have a combined £30 million turnover, and Kinloch takes a cut. This is the part of the business for which Bannerman is responsible, while John looks after the Highlands dress and identity division. Both are equally important.
"It is two different types of business, but the retail and the brand we have here is really important to what we do overseas. If we didn't have this here…" says Bannerman, gesturing around the board room attired in Kinloch Anderson tartan. "This is really what it is all about."
But the plan is to expand the licence business even further. With an established manufacturing base in the Far East, Bannerman envisages a Kinloch Anderson shop in every European capital. He has also recently returned from Russia, to which he had been to explore franchise opportunities.
Suits retail for anywhere between £600 to £3,000, and Bannerman dismisses those who sniff at the quality of clothes manufactured in the Far East. "It really is luxury end," he says. "The quality is top. For people in the past who were dismissive of products made in Asia, we make sure we work with the right people."
The brand covers everything from menswear, and children's wear – the company has 36 children's wear stores in Taiwan – to leather goods, women's wear and household goods. It is high-end stuff, but with a Scottish twist. Shops also carry cashmere – sourced from companies such as Peter Scott but branded Kinloch Anderson – as well as whisky.
"We do a lot of VisitScotland's work for them," says Bannerman of the Kinloch shops flying the saltire in the Far East.
"People recognise us as being British, but it is British style, Scottish character," says Bannerman. "It is very important to get that Scottish side in so people know we are different from Aquascutum, Daks, Gieves and Burberry."
But the pair clearly relish the effect of the company's history on the brand. They do a small business repairing historic Kinloch-made kilts handed down the generations. One customer looking to adjust an old kilt wanted to keep the bullet hole his ancestor acquired in battle as a memento.
Kinloch Anderson and Bannerman also relate the story of three men who arrived recently at the shop in a taxi. ("You tell it," encourages Bannerman).
The father and his two sons had flown in from Boston and had gone there directly from the airport. One of the sons was getting married and they had decided they would treat themselves to kilts, but rather than making it part of a holiday, the Americans were there for only 24 hours.
John Kinloch Anderson is clearly pleased that someone would come all the way from the US just to visit his shop.
"They said 'This is the main event; this is what we came for'," he says. "They had visited the shop four years ago and they said if any of the sons were getting married, they would get a kilt. We are just sending the kilts back now."
He goes on: "That is the power of the experience customers have. If they come from around the corner, we do the same thing, but that is how we want people to feel."
Bannerman adds: "We do have something very special here."
TAILOR-MADE KINLOCH Anderson was founded in 1868 by William Anderson. It had premises in Edinburgh's George Street, and a shop and factory in the city's High Street.
Originally a civilian tailoring business, the company became a supplier of military wear for the Scottish regiments in time for the First World War and through the Second World War.
In the 1930s, the third family member to run the business, William, took it into ready-to-wear rather than bespoke tailoring in time for the arrival of mass-market manufacture of apparel.
In the 1950s, Kinloch Anderson launched a wholesale division, selling tartan and tweed clothing and accessories overseas.
Kinloch Anderson is a sponsor and recommended supplier for The Gathering.
The Highland dress industry is estimated to be worth £350 million a year to the Scottish economy.
