Harris Tweed Hebrides, is to reopen a mill to produce the distinctive cloth at Shawbost on the Isle of Lewis, a year after it closed. Financial Times

It intends to supply customers at the top end of the fashion market who might otherwise have been lost to the industry.

The main shareholder in the new company is Ian Taylor, a Scottish businessman who has spent the last 30 years in the oil industry.

Harris tweed can only be produced in the Outer Hebrides by weavers working at their own homes. The cloth is then finished in island mills. A large mill, located in Stornoway, was last year sold to Haggas, a Yorkshire-based textile group, which intends to limit its production to a small range of patterns to manufacture men’s jackets.

Taylor said: ‘This will ensure not only that existing markets can obtain Harris tweed but also that there will be innovation and new ideas to take forward its huge potential. What we are doing is complementary to, rather than in competition with, the other business model.’