The CLAVIE KING’S Kilt

This ceremonial kilt embodies an ancient local custom in my region; The Burning of the Clavie, a barrel burning festival heralding the new year and bestowing health and prosperity to the fishing community of Burghead. Fire festivals have been common along our north east coast since Pictish times, though this one has had a particular story since 1752, when the Julian calendar was swapped to the Gregorian, omitting eleven days in the process.

Embodied in this kilt of eleven double box pleats are these missing moments in time, as each pleat has been calculated to capture twenty four hours in their folds. The kilt records the night sky above Burghead on each of the missing days using the constellations the fishermen would have used to navigate their way to the Baltic, embroidered onto this fireproof wool with yarn spun from the Clavie kings own flock by Amy Neville at Naturally Useful. On these trips barrels of herring were traded for pine tar—the means by which the Clavie is lit each year—and the medium I have added to the ink that records each Clavie King and his crew in the lining of this kilt.

This kilt was made for the Northword project, a storytelling project funded by the EU Northern and Arctic Periphery Programme and delivered by Robert Gordon University and University of the Highlands & Islands