Edinburgh City Council has recently spent £1.5 million on renovating the 120,000 individual cobble stones of the old High Street -the city’s world famous Royal Mile. To celebrate the completion, a time capsule has been buried under the street and in it are a police badge, a Starbucks coffee mug and . . . . a tartan scarf! Hopefully the scarf is an all-wool one woven in Scotland but if it came from the Royal Mile, you can never be too sure. You would imagine that of all the streets in Edinburgh - indeed in Scotland - the Royal Mile would epitomize the quality ethos attached to almost everything Scottish. After all, it has Edinburgh Castle at one end, the Scottish Parliament at the other and in between, those two bastions of Scottish heritage, John Knox’s House and St. Giles Cathedral! However, visitors will know that interspersed with these great Scottish icons are many stretches of pavement and shop front that look more like an eastern bazaar than much-loved architectural and historical gems. Stretches bedecked with tartan tat and special offers that defy belief . Probably the most bloodcurdling example is the ‘kilts’ for as little as £19.99. Gullible visitors must rejoice when they see what a bargain they’re getting . . . a Highland Kilt designed in Scotland and made from authentic woven tartan! If, instead of that label with its authentic Celtic border, they saw one that said "Acrylic skirt, woven in Pakistan" would they be so eager to buy it?

‘How do retailers get away with such misleading labeling?’ you might ask.
 

The simple answer is that we don’t know! Let’s have a closer look at it . . . . the article it refers to is a sort of kilt and kilts do come from the Scottish Highlands. It is an authentic tartan — the Anderson tartan was designed in Scotland circa 1850. The fabric has been woven — albeit in Pakistan using an acrylic yarn that bursts into flames if ignited. The ‘kilt’, the tartan and even the label have all been designed in Scotland, so we can’t fault any of those statements in isolation . . . taken individually, each one of them is true and perfectly legal. However . . . put them altogether and frame them with the Celtic border and you have an excellent example of what some would call ‘passing off’ . . . that is, pretending that an article is something that it is not. In this case, giving the very distinct impression that it is the genuine article - a Highland kilt woven in wool in Scotland.

To be fair, the retailers of these ‘kilts’ are not solely those traders with family connections in Asia. Amongst their number are more than a handful of dyed-in-the-wool (dyed-in-theacrylic?) Scots who should know better than drag their national dress down to such a level. Since national pride and conscience seem scarcer than hens’ teeth in some parts of the Royal Mile, then at least we can rely on those local guardians of the shoppers’ rights, the City of Edinburgh Council . . . . or can we? When alerted to the problem their judgment was reported as being that no sensible shopper could possibly believe that the article in question was a real kilt.