Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 4 on 9/9/2002.

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Social climbers

Kate Patrick reports on the success of pedlars mail order clothing: a smart combination of evolution and integrity

Scene one: catalogue purveying lifestyle products plops through letterbox, the third to arrive this week. Occupants of house skim through atmospherically-styled shots of pale suede fringed cushions and hemlock-fragranced homeopathic roomspray, and wonder quite how these totems are going to fit in with the way in which they actually live. Has the notion of lifestyle‚ – now so ubiquitously understood – begun ever-so-slightly to lose the plot?

Scene two: Pedlars mail order catalogue arrives, exuding colour and energy. Inside are real people (as opposed to models), many of them related to each other, photographed in real-life situations – camping, lounging by the fire, riding (horse, bike, motorbike), gathering round for a family game, spraying each other with a hosepipe. "From Scotland to the World," it says on the front, followed by "A way of life". Is this, finally, a way of life we can not only believe in, but hope in some way to attain?

Pedlars has come a long way from its early days as a small family business based in Dundee that created elasticated-waist trousers and gypsy skirts using deliberately mismatching panels of tartan fabric. When Charlie and Caroline Gladstone acquired it in 1997 it was turning over about £70,000 ($100,000) a year; by comparison, next year’s target will be £1 million ($1.5m) which will come from a combination of clothes and general merchandise.

The original trousers and skirts still feature – although in updated, more fashion-aware checks and .....

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By Kate Patrick

Section : Scottish Shopping

Page number : 38