A NEW tartan has been launched as part of the costume design for a punchy play that explores the world of Scottish backhold wrestling.
Playwright Nat McCleary, costume designer Sabrina Henry and Glaswegian weavers Vevar have created the tartan for Thrown which tells the story of Glasgow’s most unlikely backhold wrestling team.
Directed by Johnny McKnight and staged by the National Theatre of Scotland, it features a diverse inter-generational all-female cast and challenges contemporary notions of Scottishness.
A style of wrestling which originated in Scotland, backhold wrestling is practised at many Highland Games and the play is touring the Highland Games circuit this summer before dates at Edinburgh International Festival.
Playwright Nat McCleary, who has Scottish and Jamaican heritage, said she wanted to create a tartan as the legacy of the play.
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“My family name comes from an Irish slave trader and I didn’t want to adopt a tartan that I didn’t feel connected to,” she explained.
“I knew I wouldn’t be the only person who, for many reasons, may feel that tartan was off-limits or couldn’t be authentically engaged with, so I resolved to create one for those of us ‘home-grown’.
“Tartan doesn’t have to be significant for everyone, but for those for whom it is, this tartan is a visual story of discordant unity; of belonging in tension, the mess of the past inescapably woven into the mess of the present.
“This is a tartan for all of us ‘home-grown’, without long ties to the land and her traditions who yet are tied and rooted in our Scottishness.”
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The tartan, called Homegrown, was designed by Sabrina Henry who works as a costume designer and curator at Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Art. Homegrown represents an understanding that there is no singular identity that is unimpacted by the presence and legacies of others and therefore no singular Scottishness,” she said.
“Reading Nat’s script for Thrown, I immediately felt that the characters represented the many personalities, joys and complexities that we hold and that make a person.
“Learning about the process of tartan creation from Vevar Studios I could see this reflected in the process of making the pattern, selecting the colours, textures and their meanings.”
The new tartan features in the show as an important part of the characters’ journey to the Championships.
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