Designer Intro

Lynne McCallum Barr is originally from Culloden just outside Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.

She has grown up surrounded by Harris Tweed and its traditions.  Lynne’s mother comes from a large Gaelic speaking family on the Island of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, where she would spend many happy times visiting her grandparents and cousins in Shawbost and surrounding villages.

While there she would spend hours watching her grandfather weaving Harris Tweed in the “loom shed” just outside the house.  There she would fill the large bobbins with wool, ready for her grandfather to change and as a good excuse to stay and watch this amazing tweed appear slowly before her eyes, “as long as I was quiet he was happy”, because it takes a great deal of concentration and skill to weave the perfect Harris Tweed.

Lynne’s uncles were also Harris Tweed weavers with their own looms, so it should come as no surprise that today she is still involved with Harris Tweed and is working with this wonderful Scottish cloth in all of the BlackHouse* designs.

At present, Lynne lives with her husband in a small coastal village in East Lothian – not far from Edinburgh, where she works from home designing and hand-making limited edition stylish and fun Harris Tweeds handbags and accessories.  At the moment she is also sourcing more fantastic Scottish textiles to add to the BlackHouse collections.

The BlackHouse mission, with this range of original, vibrant and simple but stylish collections, is to introduce new and established Harris Tweed lovers to a new generation of this wonderful Scottish made textile.

Click here to learn more about the history of Harris Tweed.