Harris Tweed goes from catwalk to classroom
CHILDREN ON SCOTTISH ISLAND BEING TAUGHT HOW TO BECOME NEW GENERATION OF WEAVERS LEADER COMMENT: TWEED: THE HISTORY OF A CLASSIC SCOTTISH FABRIC MAGAZINE Rang-dang-diggidy-dang-a-dang! Edinburgh crowns the Breakdance Queen of Britain SPECIAL REPORT
HARRIS Tweed has become the darling of the fashion world in recent years, with stars and models wearing it on red carpets and runways across the world – and now the industry is being viewed as an attractive career prospect for young people in the Outer Hebrides for the first time in decades.
Over the past ten years the hand-woven fabric has gone from being associated solely with fusty brown jackets to a fashionable must-have, available in a variety of colours and used for everything from bags and keyrings to wedding bouquets and hoodies.
A new generation of would-be weavers is being encouraged to learn about the industry through courses taking place in lo-
BY KARIN GOODWIN
EDINBURGH was a whirl of arms, legs and headspins yesterday as the finest female breakdancers in the UK battled it out to take the title of the nation’s top B-Girl... thankful Honey G was nowhere to be seen. After hours of backspins, windmills, drops and freezes, 31-year-old Jenn Gauss – aka Ginseng – was crowned the UK’s fiercest B-girl (that’s breakdance girl, for those not in the know) in the British heat for the world’s top breakdance event.
After seeing off 15 of the highest-level hip-hop dancers here, Gauss will go through to the International Queen 16 final in Leipzig, Germany to battle the rest of the world’s best B-girls.
The Queen 16 UK qualifier, at Edinburgh’s Ocean Terminal, was part of the Audacious Women festival across the city this month, encouraging women to try something they’ve always wanted to do but never dared.
Organised by the State — a female-run organisation that runs hip hop programmes for young people in Leith — the breakdancing event aimed to take a pop at the more misogynistic elements of hip hop culture and reconnect it with its roots in peace, unity, love... and having fun.
Gauss, who impressed judges with her detailed footwork and creativity, said she was “over-the-moon” to win and get the chance to take part in the all-women international contest, originally founded in the States in 2011.
“It’s a massive deal for me,” she add- cal schools on the islands. In the past eight years, the average age of the workforce has already dropped from an “unsustainable” 61 to 50. Lorna Macaulay, chief executive of the Harris Tweed Authority, the body which oversees the industry, said it once offered far from attractive career prospects. “When I was growing up it was seasonal, it was fraught with cyclical lay-offs and poor working conditions and something we saw ed. “It was a tough battle and it felt close to call. I can genuinely say I’ve not had an opportunity like this before. Breakdancing doesn’t come naturally to me and I’ve had to work hard at it. I hope that shows other women that if they want to, they can do it too.”
Her fellow finalist Emma Houston, 25, from Stirling – aka Shortbread – whose energetic routine was packed full of power moves, claimed that though she was disappointed not to win, taking part was hugely satisfying.
“It’s really important that there are B-girl battles like these,” she said. “It helps the community of women come together, shows us the level we’re at and helps us push that further. It’s physically demanding and needs strength and flexibility but it’s such only our grandfathers doing in draughty loom sheds,” she said. “That is no longer the case. The brightest, most talented young people desperately want to work in the Harris Tweed Industry. It is now seen as a very attractive career option on the island. It is recognised there is a global sector on the doorstep. You don’t need to be a weaver – you can be involved in the design side, or the accountancy side or the business side; there are all manner of career types.”
There is now a recognised SQA qualification in Harris Tweed, the National Progression Award, which is being undertaken by pupils in Harris and Lewis in years S5 and S6. It provides an insight into the history of the industry, as well as weaving and designing and making and promoting products using tweed. Pupils attending The Nicolson Institute in Stornoway, Lewis, the largest school in the Western Isles, can also take a “taster” elective course in S2 as part of Gaelic studies, which Macaulay said was usually “totally oversubscribed”. an empowering style. It’s a great way of connecting with yourself, with the music and the community.”
Organiser Emma Hamilton, a breakdancer for nearly 20 years under the B-girl moniker Emma Ready, said: “The standard here has been very high. We’ve got the best girls from the UK. Women are still a minority in breakdancing and though some people don’t think we should have separate women’s competitions it’s a way of giving them an extra boost. This is a brilliant showcase of all that women can do.”
The history of breakdancing goes back to 1970s New York when hip hip DJs like Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash started to offer alternatives to the violent gang culture of the Bronx. DJing, MCing,
Harris Tweed suffered years of decline until famous names such as designer Vivienne Westwood, Doctor Who star Matt Smith and rapper Tinie Tempah began championing it. Alison Macleod, who runs a Harris Tweed business, said: “When I was in school, there was nothing – we didn’t learn about it, there was nothing like the shops we have in town now selling tweed and we didn’t own anything tweed. [Pupils] learn more about the whole industry now and it is something in their heads as a career.”
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B’Boying and graffiti came together to create an important culture movement. It took off across the world in the 80s and continues to reinvent itself.
“The ethos is about peace, unity, love and having fun,” added Hamilton. “Those are the powers of hip hop. Everyone can recognise those values.”
Nancy McAndrew, Scotland’s first B-girl, now 53, has been breakdancing for 33 years, and said women’s breakdancing events like Queen 16 were “what I’ve been striving for.” Inspired by eighties movies like
she started a crew with her brothers and friends in Kirkcaldy and was initially the only girl on the scene.
“We used to get a bit of lino and go and breakdance down on the promenade or outside empty shops,” she said. “We looked weird as anything.
“The boys tried hard to exclude you as a girl but I was determined. I wanted to make sure I could do all the hardest moves, like Windmills [where the legs move through the air like a windmill], before them, and I did.
“When I got older I hired out the local hall and we got the kids hanging out on the street corners to come in and learn. It gave them life skills. We didn’t know it at the time but that’s how they used hip hop in the Bronx.
“I just love events like today. Everyone is equal but women have always had to work so much harder to get in so seeing this is great.”
Sally Wainwright, director of the Audacious Women festival, added: “Breakdancing is a traditionally male event, some would say misogynistic, so women getting into that is challenging barriers.”