modern "Semi Dress" sporrans

[OC Richard]

People getting into kilt-wearing since the 1980s have been presented, by the established makers such as WE Scott (Edinburgh) and L&M Highland (Nova Scotia), three genres of sporran: Day Dress, Evening Dress, and Semi Dress.

Yet in the catalogues I've seen and owned, ranging from Edwardian times up through the 1960s, the styles of sporran now called "semi dress" don't appear. There are Day sporrans and Evening sporrans, and the Day sporrans are brown.

This is backed up by hundreds of photos of men in Highland dress throughout the period.

Interesting is a 1983 catalogue which offers the usual suite of brown leather Day sporrans with a footnote stating that some of the styles are available on special order, at a higher price, in black.

The same catalogue, on a separate page, does show four sporrans they call "Day/Evening Wear". Two are ordinary all-leather Day sporrans in black leather, while two are what we would call "semi dress" being traditional Day sporrans done in black, with ball & chain seal Evening tassels added.

Since the appearance of black Day sporrans coincided with the explosion in popularity of Kilt Hire, I infer that these sporrans were created to be hired with the suddenly ubiquitous black Prince Charlie coatee.

I just now made this evolution chart showing how the makers quickly cobbled together things to meet the sudden demand for sporrans less expensive than seal & silver traditional Evening sporrans, were black to match the Prince Charlie, and had just enough bling to not look as out-of-place as a traditional brown Day sporran.

The left column has three traditional Day sporrans which have been around since the 1920s.

The centre column has the traditional Evening sporrans from which bits were appropriated.

The right column has the newly created neither-fish-nor-fowl "semi dress" Kilt Hire hybrids.