Sgian Dubh casual, formal, both?

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Hello MacMillan. Have you a source to support this position? Thanks.

Hi Tommy-- I think that Galb has pretty much answered this; but since you asked, virtually every book published on highland dress (with the lone exception of Thompson's "So You're Going To Wear The Kilt", first published in 1979) tends to make a clear distinction between "day" and "evening" wear, including sgians dubh.

I'll quote from just one source, because it is still considered the best by most folks living in Scotland:

"The Sgian Dubh with carved handle and silver mounting is correct with day or evening dress." And: "The Sgian Dubh with bone handle is sometimes worn with day dress". Later, in the same edition: "A black-handled sgian with a cairngrom set in silver mountings is equally correct for town wear." -- C.R. MacKinnon of Dunakin, F.S.A.Scot., Scottish Tartans & Highland Dress; Collins, 1961 (with later editions).

Now what we see here is that it was considered perfectly normal to posses a single knife that could be worn for day or evening wear, the traditional "black knife" or sgian dubh, with carved black handle and silver mounts that may or may not have been embellished with the addition of cairngorms and the like. Anything else (bone or antler) was-- and still is-- considered strictly a day wear item.

There are several reasons for this, and probably chief amongst these is that highland attire, more than any other modern mode of gentlemen's dress, takes its styling cues from military uniforms. Those uniforms worn by the various Scottish regiments have changed but little in the last 100 years, and neither has the general cut of civilian highland wear. Military sgians are black, and each regiment has (or at least used to have) it's own distinct pattern. This translated into the civilian world quite nicely, and gentlemen were able to procure fabulously well made sgians from literally dozens of suppliers until the middle decades of the last century. Sadly this is no longer the case, and one now pays as much at auction for a decent sgian dubh as he does for a well made kilt.

Finally, as proud as I am at having designed the "Officer Sgian Dubh", now manufactured by Gaelic Themes, I would never wear one to any sort of formal evening event. It, like the chunk of antler sgian I also posses, is strictly a day wear item, or something worn in the eveing when the kilt is to be preferred over a suit and tie.

Yours, Aye--
Rathdown