Article by Anya Diggines

In 2014 Scotland hosted the Commonwealth Games for a third time and Glasgow became first-time hosts. A statement had to be made as pressure built on organisers to make the Games memorable and showcase the best of Scottish sport. The Opening Ceremony at Celtic Park was the time for Scotland to make their mark on the Games.

Jilli Blackwood, a Glasgow School of Art graduate, was commissioned by Commonwealth Games Scotland after her hand in the Delhi 2010 Closing Ceremony outfits.

Her bold designs for the Opening Ceremony outfits certainly drew a lot of comment, with The Daily Telegraph describing the men’s pairing of vibrant blue shirts with a pink and caramel tartan kilt as a “clash of colours”. Meanwhile, female athletes wore a blue wraparound dress and tartan to complement the men’s kilts.

“I knew I had done a good job because I received a reaction from the public. If the public had just said ‘oh yeah that’s nice’ then I knew I had got it wrong.”

Jilli Blackwood

A petition, created by Robert McArthur, was started in an attempt to get the outfits scrapped and for more traditional attire, with 666 fans supporting the cause.

Jilli gives credit to the critics for making the outfits so successful: “I knew I had done a good job because I received a reaction from the public.

“If the public had just said ‘oh yeah that’s nice’ then I knew I had got it wrong.

“The complainers made the outfits what they are, they turned them into a media storm.

“It catapulted me from being Jilli Blackwood, textile artist, into a media figure for a week.”

Jilli’s involvement in the 2010 Games in Delhi taught her so much about being part of a global performance.

She recalled: “I was interviewed for an article for the Scotland on Sunday magazine and for that article the journalist asked me what my dreams for the future were and that’s when I stated that I would like to dress the Scottish team.

“And that was when I received a call from Commonwealth Games Scotland asking me to come along to Stirling for an interview.

“I learnt (from Delhi) that in a stadium that size, how little people become, and they disappear.

“So, I felt I gained a lot of knowledge. It had been a great success.”

Indeed, the Delhi Times remarked how Scotland had “stolen the show” which proved inspirational for Jilli’s approach for Glasgow 2014.

Jilli took into consideration the fact that Team Scotland were the last to come out into the stadium and it would have been easy for the team to make no impact at all.

“I knew through the use of colour I could make them stand out from the crowd. It had to be colours that were going to pop on television and in the stadium,” she said.

“When you think of Scotland you think it is quite green, but I have travelled quite widely throughout Scotland, through all the seasons and what struck me is that the land can be a very brown and caramel colour.

“When I was asked to design it, I knew it had to be a tartan, so I set to work and showed Commonwealth Games Scotland a wide variety of patterns and they were very drawn to the one they chose and this warm caramel colour and the blue that loosely reflected the surrounding water of Scotland.

“The pink was about the heather and the energy the athletes were potentially holding within had to shine through the clothes they were wearing.”

The lasting impacts of the outfits have been clear. The tartan used is still in demand as she has been asked to make cushions for a former competing athlete and gets messages from across the world asking if people can buy the tartan.

Charline Jones, former racing cyclist who modelled the Opening Ceremony outfits alongside her then future husband Lee Jones, said that Lee still often wears the kilt to weddings.

“It’s nice because you only have the tartan if you were at the Commonwealth Games.

“The tartan was just beautiful, and I was really proud to wear it” Charline said.

“We knew the outfits were different from anything we had before and because it was a home games that’s what we wanted.

“There is still a lot of chat around the outfits but that’s a good thing because that’s what we wanted people to remember.”

So, 10 years on, the legacy of the much-debated outfits lives on but they have ensured that Glasgow 2014 is still talk of the town.