Stuart Bennett, owner of The Wee Tartan Shop, loves Scotland. He loves the food, the clothes, the people, the scenery. Everything about the country. So when he was considering retiring from the corporate world, he decided to open a small Scottish import store. “Having been born in Scotland, I figured a Scottish store in Port Perry would be a good place to end my career,” he says. “We’ve been open since 1998, and I’m not planning on ending my career anytime soon.”
Stuart took his store’s name from the criss-cross pattern often found on kilts and other Gaelic memorabilia. He rents these items to people for weddings and other events. But for the truly hardcore, Stuart also works with a kilt maker who can fashion you a kilt in any tartan you choose. “We have six tartans that you can rent for weddings and we have all the gear to go with it: the shoes, the sporrans and the sgian-dubhs,” Stuart explains. “We make kilts for quite a few people, too. We buy the cloth from Scotland and we have a kilt maker here who makes the kilt.”