Around 150 people gathered in Scottish sports casual clothes for a tweed-themed bicycle ride around Tokyo, kicked off the Tokyo Fashion Week this past weekend. Some were kitted out in the full deerstalker set that would not look out of place on a British stag hunt, others added a Tokyo twist to the traditional material, donning tweed blousons or sneakers.

Traditional tweed, especially the authentic Harris Tweed handwoven fabric, has remained enormously popular as a must-have item in Japan ― the world’s biggest market for the material which comes only from the far northwestern tip of Scotland, where winter nights are long and summer days go on forever.

If it’s not handwoven from pure virgin wool by islanders in the Outer Hebrides, dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides and finished in the Outer Hebrides, it's not the genuine article, according to the Harris Tweed Authority, which sets the standard for a material that is a staple of royal wardrobes.

Tweed has fought off the onslaught of the industrial age to rise against cheap machine-made copies dashed out in the Far East.

While low cost will always come up trumps for some customers, many at the higher end will only ever choose the real thing, something especially true in Japan, the destination for more than 40 per cent of all the Harris Tweed exported in 2012.