THE THREADS THAT BIND US
PHOTO JOURNAL BY JACQUELINE CAMERON, FOUNDER, RÙADH
It’s just after dawn. A red sky unfurls across the Scottish countryside as Jacqueline Cameron drives toward Hawick—the birthplace of her grandmother’s craft and now, the spiritual home of her own. This is not a nostalgic return. It is a reclamation. A reconnection to people, process, and place.
“I could go to Italy. I could go to China,” she says, “but I chose Hawick for a reason.”
The reason is legacy. The reason is intention.
For Cameron, Founder of the considered clothing label Rùadh, every stitch in her brand’s story is deliberate. There is no mass scale. No throwaway trends. No outsourcing of conscience. There is only craft—done with care, close to home, and always in community.
Named after the Gaelic word for red, the label Rùadh is both a color and a code—a nod to the Scottish bloodline that informs Cameron’s vision. It is a brand built on the idea that clothing should be as cherished as a family heirloom, not consumed in passing. The sweaters are hand-linked by artisans she knows by name, in a factory where her grandmother once worked, in a town where generations have passed the needle down.
“It’s in the air there,” she says. “The craftsmanship. The reverence.”
That reverence runs deep. Her garments—crafted from regenerative cotton, organic wool, vegetable-tanned leathers—are more than sustainable. They are soulful. Each item is embedded with a memory, a story, a purpose. Cameron calls it “living design,” garments made to live with you, evolve with you, and eventually be returned, recycled, or reborn through her take-back program.
This is not just circular fashion. It’s full-circle storytelling.
As a creative director who has spent over twenty years navigating the churn of commercial fashion, Cameron is forging a new paradigm—where creative control means ethical accountability, and growth is measured not by volume but by values. “I’ve seen the impact of disconnection,” she says. “The silos. The waste. The overproduction. This isn’t just a business model. This is a response.”
She’s also building an ecosystem—partnering with female-led factories in Portugal, regenerative ranchers in the U.S., family-run denim laundries that use Bluesign-approved chemistry, and heritage mills salvaged from the brink. Each relationship is rooted in mutual respect and shared vision.
“Everyone I work with wants to do things better,” she says. “They’re the quiet disruptors. I’m just helping tell their story through the clothes.”
THE THREADS THAT BIND US
"For me, building RÙADH felt like a natural progression, this brand is inspired by the landscapes of my youth and is underpinned by a return to craft and an ethically sourced and produced ethos."
For Cameron, Rùadh is not about expansion—it’s about expression. She dreams of a single flagship space to connect physically with her community. A platform to educate, gather, and invite people into the deeper meaning of what they wear. And though her collection is small - just eleven pieces to start—each piece carries the weight of intention.
“When I think of success, it’s not about scale,” she reflects. “It’s about soul. It’s about supporting the communities behind the product, making space for their stories, and helping people fall back in love with what they own.”
In a world wired for overconsumption, Jac’s approach is radical in its restraint. She’s not just making clothes. She’s making a point: that beauty is stronger when it’s rooted in truth, and that the future of fashion is not in the noise—it’s in the nuance.
But place isn’t just a backdrop in Cameron's story—it’s a protagonist.
The land she grew up on—a 100-acre Scottish farm filled with rescued horses, wild pigs, and a sense of boundless outdoor freedom—is deeply embedded in the ethos of label Rùadh. “My youth stays with me in how I think about land and the things we care for,” she says. “It gave me a reverence that I carry into this brand.”
Whether it’s the red earth of her childhood or the red-dyed yarns of her current collection, the thread connecting place, heritage, and product is unbroken. Even her sourcing mirrors the topography of her roots: rugged tweeds, centuries-old tartans, and cashmere spun in the last remaining Scottish yarn mill—each chosen not for trend, but for legacy.
Looking ahead, the future of Ruadh isn’t fast-paced growth or category sprawl. Instead, it’s depth over breadth—intimacy over influence. Cameron envisions thoughtful collaborations, intimate trunk shows, and a community-first approach to scaling. Her growth strategy is almost subversive in its calmness: one story, one place, one purpose at a time.
“We’re coming off an era where success was only measured by endless expansion,” she says. “I don’t want to grow for growth’s sake. I want to grow because we’ve earned trust.”
As the fashion industry grapples with the contradictions of sustainability, consumerism, and climate urgency, Rùadh stands quietly apart—not claiming perfection, but embodying progress. With so much noise in the space, Cameron's work offers a kind of gentle clarity: rooted, respectful, regenerative.
And in this cultural moment—where more people are asking where their clothing comes from, how it was made, and by whom—her work doesn’t just fit the narrative. It elevates it.
Because in the end, Rùadh isn’t about reinventing fashion. It’s about remembering what made it matter in the first place.
“When I think of success, it’s not about scale. It’s about soul. It’s about supporting the communities behind the product, making space for their stories, and helping people fall back in love with what they own.”
"There is a stoic resilience and realism in the Scottish culture that I find to be truly inspiring."
Rùadh is defined by limited production, minimal impact, luxury make.
"Within my work I explore articulations of organic forms, bold full sleeves and sculpted silhouettes that converge with heavy weight regenerative cotton denim. The dichotomy of these elements is something that I love to express time and again and will see continue and evolve in
different fabrications in the coming seasons."
