Fabric Definitions — definitions of fabrics, cloths, laces and textile materials from Apparel Search
A scrim is a very light textile made from cotton, or sometimes flax. Its light weight and translucence means it is often used for making curtains, and the fabric can also be used for bookbinding and upholstery. Scrims have also seen extensive use in theatre, where they are often used for special effects.
Scrims have also seen extensive use in theatre, Sharktooth scrim, is the more proper term to describe it, where they are often used for special effects. In theater a scrim can refer to any such thin screen, and are made out of a wide variety of materials. The advantage of scrims is that when lit from the front they can appear opaque to the audience, until a quick change in stage lighting (lighting from behind) makes them almost fully transparent.
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The Fabric That Is Two SurfacesScrim is the rare textile whose value is a trick of light. The cloth itself is nothing much — a very light, open plain weave of cotton or flax, translucent, cheap, and unremarkable in the hand. What it does on stage is remarkable. Hung between audience and set and lit steeply from the front, a scrim behaves like a solid wall: the light strikes the threads facing the audience, the eye reads a continuous surface, and anything painted on the scrim — a sky, a facade, a forest — reads as scenery. Shift the lighting so the scene behind the scrim is lit and the front light dies, and the balance inverts: the threads, now unlit, contribute almost nothing, the lit objects behind dominate, and the wall dissolves. A figure can appear inside a room that seemed solid, a memory scene can materialize behind a present-tense one, ghosts can stand inside walls. Directors and lighting designers treat the scrim as a dissolve made of cloth, the stage equivalent of a film fade, and the effect depends entirely on disciplined lighting angles — a scrim lit carelessly from both sides simply looks like net. An Ordinary Cloth With a Famous Second JobAway from the stage, scrim leads the quiet life its structure suggests. Its translucence and negligible weight make it a curtain cloth where privacy is wanted without darkness, and its open, stable weave makes it a reinforcement: bookbinders have used scrim-type cloths to strengthen spines and hinges, and upholsterers use it as a light under-layer. In the theatre sense, the word has also widened — a scrim can refer to any thin screen used for the effect, made from a wide variety of materials, including modern synthetic nets that outperform cotton in size and consistency. Theatres hang scrims as full-stage drops, sometimes seamless and tens of feet wide, painted by scenic artists who must paint knowing the cloth will spend part of the show invisible. That double life is the definition's real content: scrim is a modest utility fabric that happens, under controlled light, to perform the most theatrical trick in the building — being there and not being there on cue. Common QuestionsHow does a theatre scrim become transparent?A scrim's open, translucent weave holds both states. Lit from the front, the threads catch the light and the cloth reads as an opaque surface — it can even be painted as scenery. Light the scene behind it instead, and the threads catch little light while objects behind are illuminated, so the scrim becomes almost fully transparent and the hidden scene appears. What is sharktooth scrim?Sharktooth scrim is the more proper term for the theatrical scrim fabric — a net-like woven cotton with a distinctive tooth-like open mesh. Its particular openness is what balances the two lighting states so a stage reveal can be timed to a lighting change alone. Where is scrim used besides the theatre?As a domestic and craft material, scrim's light weight and translucence suit it to curtains, and the fabric is also used for bookbinding and upholstery — anywhere a fine, open, inexpensive cotton or flax cloth is needed as a light layer or reinforcement. More to ExploreMore from Apparel Search: Fabric Definitions | Clothing Industry Glossary | Fashion Terms | Apparel Search Home
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