‘A dying art’: Cape Breton woman marks 30 years of kiltmaking

Deana Lloy creates Highland wear and custom tartans at her shop Red Label Kilts.

A Cape Breton woman is marking three decades of stitching together history and culture with her handmade kilts.

Deana Lloy owns Red Label Kilts in Sydney, N.S., where she creates Highland wear and custom tartans.

She says she first learned of kiltmaking when her daughter first started Highland dance.

“I’ve always had a sewing background through my family, and it was a great expansion to what I had already done as far as just alterations, making the odd thing here or there, gowns for people who are graduating,” she says.

Lloy produced items for Highland dancers for years before gradually moving on to producing for the military and others.

“There is a process, we go through the whole thing of their colours. Once we have that, and the design is completed and approved by the family or organization, then we move that design to the Scottish authority in Scotland and that gives us the final approval on that,” Lloy says.

With each stich done by hand, it takes Lloy about 16 hours to complete a kilt.

“One of the ‘wow’ moments in my career was about four years ago when I was in Scotland at a trade show and walking down one of the many aisles of many vendors and point to my scarf and say that’s ‘Absolute Darkness,’” says Lloy, referring to a tartan she designed on behalf of the Cape Breton Miners Museum as a tribute to coal miners and their families. “They knew my tartan … someone internationally knows me.”

Lloy calls kiltmaking a “dying art,” noting it’s on the Red List of Endangered Crafts in Scotland.

“The numbers are declining. I’ve been the only one here in Sydney for 30 years,” she says. “I really think that we need to train people to be kiltmakers.”

For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page