Dress Kilt Sporran..MUST it be fur???

[OC Richard]

To address the original question, there's no 'must' about it, but people who have been around Highland Dress a long time have developed notions about what looks appropriate.

All the Highland Dress catalogues that I saw when I first started wearing Highland Dress 35 years ago made a clear distinction between "day dress" and "evening dress".

I recently got an old (pre WWII) catalogue and in it fur sporrans are listed with the evening dress jackets, and leather sporrans are listed seperately along with the tweed day jackets.

And these old catatogues have illustrations like this:



These notions persist, as evidenced in this gathering of many of the world's best pipers for a formal event in Glasgow recently:



Here's a pipe band in the 1970's showing the wearing of "day" sporrans with "day dress" (but the PM has an evening sporran)



My seeing thousands of men wearing fur sporrans with evening dress and leather sporrans with day dress over the last 35 years has made that distinction look "right" to my eye.

But...

It's an odd thing... when I thought about it, for some strange reason it looks appropriate for the sporran to be a tad more formal than the rest of the outfit, but not the reverse.

Here are fur sporrans worn with less than formal dress:







and many hundreds of other examples.

About the "hunting sporran", when I got into this in the 70's the traditional "hunting sporran" was brown and worn with "day dress", that is, a tweed day jacket:



But when pipe bands, in the 1980's, began going to the black Argyll jackets, there was a sense that fur evening sporrans were perhaps too formal, but the usual leather pocket with flap day sporrans weren't formal enough.

So somebody at some point got the idea of sticking the cantle from an evening sporran on a hunting sporran, now in black, and these became enormously popular for pipe bands. I've been to competitions where 18 of the 20 bands are wearing this style.

Here it is, the modern Pipe Band sporran:



and being worn by the world's champion pipe band, SFU

[Ian G]

I have cruised several times and used my USAF tartan kilt as seen here. You will be surprised at the number of men that wear kilts on formal night. Last year I ran into groups from Perth and Stirling on two different ships in the Caribbean. Have a great cruise and show us your formal night. The one shown here was on the Freedom of the Seas in October, 2009.

[Schiehallion]

In my opinion it is the shape and the material of the top of the sporran. Therefore an arched metal cantle is the better choice as it looks formal and does come in non fur materials.

[OC Richard]

The top sporran is an 18th century style sporran, with the distinctive side knobs which form the hinge, and the top knob which is the latch. The top of these sporrans is in two pieces which hinge open.

That boy's sporran is very interesting indeed, as it has an 18th century style top complete with the hinge knobs and latch knob, but the body has the "hunting sporran" leather targe on the front.

The modern pipe band sporran isn't an 18th century style sporran, but rather the all-leather "hunting sporran" with a modern "evening sporran" cantle stuck on for "bling".

The persistence of 18th century style sporrans as "day dress" sporrans is very interesting, but I haven't seen as many images as I'd like. (In The Highlanders Of Scotland only one of the 56 men is wearing an 18th century sporran, the only leather sporran to be seen. Evidently the wearing of long hair sporrans with tweed "day" jackets was then the norm.)
Many mid-20th century and current images show clan chiefs etc wearing what appear to be original 18th century sporrans (they're obviously very very old) or in some cases modern replicas of same.

Back in the 1980's none of the large "mainstream" sporran makers (such as Scott & Son) offered 18th century sporrans but there was an old guy up near Inverness whom I visited, Alexander Robertson, who made quite exact replicas of 18th century sporrans for museums, Royalty, clan chiefs, and others who could seek him out. He said that Prince Charles wore one of his sporrans.

Here's a modern replica of a typical 18th century sporran:



In 1953 the Highland regiments adopted replica 18th century sporrans, but lacking the distinctive tassels. These had the fully functional 18th century top:





Here's an old Highland Dress catalogue showing the 18th century sporran being worn with Day Dress rather than a modern all leather pocket-with-flap "day" sporran. Note the side knobs which form the hinge, showing that this is a fully functional 18th century two-piece top. This is not simply a "day dress" leather sporran with a cantle stuck on for decoration.

[OC Richard]

Here's another photo showing the wearing a mix of plain leather, and fur, sporrans in otherwise quite plain "day dress", piping competitors at Oban, 1950:

[creagdhubh]

Geoff beat me to it. In the Corps, one would never wear a kilt because it is not regulation uniform dress. In fact, you'd probably get written up for wearing it with uniform articles of clothing. The Corps is very particular about unifrom regs, and that's one reason Marines always look good.

Having said that, I have seen a local fellow who had a dress blue blouse cut down to kilt length and modified with a sporran cut away that looked really good. If you remove the military buttons and replace with just about any brass button (to keep it legal), and not wear USMC badges, etc,. you'd be fine. But only as civilian attire, not as military uniform dress.

Precisely.

Semper Fidelis and Ductus Exemplo,

Sgt. Kyle A. Macpherson, USMC
1999-2007

[Mark Stephenson]

I am retired AF. Wow! I haven't seen a black mess dress in a looong time.
I have been toying with the idea of wearing my mess dress jacket if I got an AF kilt. I retired in 1993 and it still fits... well, it mostly fits <grin>

I see no harm in wearing the USAF mess dress jacket with a USAF kilt. But, I really am a newbie too. So, I'd be very interested in hearing what others have to say on the subject.

[billmcc]

I see no harm in wearing the USAF mess dress jacket with a USAF kilt. But, I really am a newbie too. So, I'd be very interested in hearing what others have to say on the subject.

Go for it! If you have the jacket, there is no reason not to use it. Just remove any insignias and change the buttons and you have a very nice formal kilt jacket. I suggest replacing the cummerbund with a vest (waistcoat).