Team Scotland's "eye-catching" new uniform for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow has been dubbed the worst Games kit ever.
More than 400 athletes turned up for an official meeting in Stirling to receive their new outfits, designed by Glasgow School of Art graduate Jilli Blackwood and produced by House of Edgar at the Isle Mill in Keith, Aberdeenshire. But no sooner had the pictures been posted on social media than the criticism started rolling in.
Find out more about the design here. #GoScotland... http://t.co/s8HblBAtkm pic.twitter.com/DIHxUPakYd— Team Scotland (@Team_Scotland) July 6, 2014
"Somewhere in Auchterarder, a tea room is missing its curtains," wrote Stephen Daisley at STV. "The shirts and dresses are not blue, not quite lapis lazuli, but the psycho-cerulean hue of a particularly vivid Smurfs doll. The kilts and shawls carry an amber, fuchsia, and aquamarine tartan, a curious mixture of the psychedelic and the twee. This is what the Sixties must have looked like in Ecclefechan."
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Made in Scotland, from curtains. pic.twitter.com/0kiJfAcgpx— Helen Milburn (@HelenMilburn) July 6, 2014
The Team Scotland's Facebook page received a barrage of criticism from people describing the kit as "humiliating", "embarrassing" and "truly horrific". Others took to Twitter to denounce it as "wrong on so many levels" and "the worst kit ever".
I can't stop looking at this. It's a colour which clashes with itself. pic.twitter.com/85wzEt7yYf— Hugo Rifkind (@hugorifkind) July 6, 2014
Blackwood insisted the athletes had reacted positively and said that was "the only thing that counts". She told The Courier: "Does it hurt? I don't think I would be human if it didn't but I'm very brave and moving on all the time. Of course there's going to be reaction. If I had got no reaction, I think that would have been far more upsetting."
@Team_Scotland Seriously ? The team are going OUT like that ? !!— Dougie Donnelly (@dougiedonnelly) July 6, 2014
Rugby Sevens player Scott Lee tactfully described it as "very comfortable and eye-catching".
tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our scatter cushions. pic.twitter.com/iiCcKARK7V— euan mccolm (@euanmccolm) July 6, 2014
At least Australia's Commonwealth team will be breathing a sigh of relief. Their uniforms were mocked for featuring three different shades of clashing green, but today Australian newspapers are celebrating the fact that their athletes won't be the worst dressed.
"If you thought Australia's Commonwealth Games uniform was bad," writes the Herald Sun, "it isn't a stitch on the host country's horror design."
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