Question about hose

[OC Richard]

I have to start with the caveat that I'm a visitor from the Pipe Band competition scene.

Pipe Band dress goes in cycles of fashion, like the width of neckties and lapel in men's suits do.

In the old days, pipe bands wore tartan or diced hosetops and spats in imitation of military bands. Or, they would wear Evening Dress complete with full tartan hose and buckled shoes, or less often Day Dress with muted solid colored/self-coloured hose in Lovat blue, Lovat green, oatmeal, etc.

Then in the late 1970's a huge fad happened for Arran knit hose in offwhite, worn with Ghillie tie brogues. Just about every band went with those for a while.

Then the next fad hit, in the 1980's: pure stark white hose with plain-knit legs but with fat bulky "bobble top" or "popcorn top" turnovers cuffs. By the 1990's if your band wasn't wearing these, you were sadly behind the times.

Now the anti-white popcorn hose fad is hitting and bands are abandoning their white hose in droves and going for anything but. Very popular are black, navy blue, and charcoal grey. But at the 2009 World Pipe Band Championships around half the Grade One Finalists were still wearing their c1990 pure white bobble top hose.

I don't know much about the non-Pipe-Band thing, but it seems to me that a lot of people began wearing offwhite/cream plain hose with Prince Charlies for Evening Dress c1980. To me it never looked right, because to my eye Evening Dress looks best with full tartan hose and buckled shoes. But, dark hose that blend with the kilt look nice too.

Here we go! First the genuine military look, with tartan or diced hose:



Here's a Highland Games in the 1970's showing the lack of ghillie-ties at that time: bands have tartan full hose and buckled shoes, or tartan hosetops and spats:



Here's a band in the glory days of the handknit offwhite Arran hose:



Here's the pure white bobbletop hose:



And finally the modern look: