Formal Sporran Options that Don't Use Fur

**jfellrath** · 11th September 06, 06:11 AM

Hi all,

I have been looking through Thompson's So You're Going To Wear The Kilt lately and thinking about jazzing up my kilt wardrobe a bit. It seems that all the formal sporrans include fur of one kind or another, and I personally don't care for fur on my clothing.

Are there any formal sporran options that don't include fur? Would a nice black leather with silver trim/closures be okay? Or am I pretty much going to have to bite the bullet and get a fur one?

Jamie

**cavscout** · 11th September 06, 06:22 AM

To my understanding, fur is not a requirement for formal ocassions though it is more common.

As long as it has the silver cantle and probably silver tassel chains it will still look very formal.

**RockyR** · 11th September 06, 06:42 AM

There are leather dress sporrans with silver cantles and other silver "bits" on them. I was actually thinking about one for my formal wardrobe.

**Mark Keeney** · 11th September 06, 06:47 AM

Look Here at this one. It is listed as semi dress but I think it would look fine.

**davedove** · 11th September 06, 07:34 AM

I do have a black rabbit fur sporran for when I want to go the whole formal route. However, I also have a sporran I got from Celtic Croft that I think would make a good non-fur formal sporran (the colored circle of leather is red on mine).

**arrogcow** · 11th September 06, 08:07 AM

Just my opinion. but I feel that if it is a nice sporran it can be worn to any event. I realize that some traditionalists will dissagree, and yes fur and silver do look fancier, but I still wear my Freelander sporran 95% of the time (to the point that I have sold all of my others except for 1). Why, because it is extremely well made and looks great and frankly makes my semi formal sporran look like junk.

I have thought about getting a real formal sporran, but when it is something that I would only wear 1-2 times a year (and then the only person at the event that would know it was "wrong" would be me most of the time), I see no real need to go whole hog, so to speak.

Adam

**auld argonian** · 11th September 06, 08:56 AM

I still think that there's a market for "sporran falsies"...add on panels of fur or whatever that would make your familiar ol' best friend sporran look like a fancy dress sporran. I mean...if you're going to dress up, why not your sporran?

Best

AA

**andyfg** · 12th September 06, 05:11 AM

Originally Posted by jfellrath

Are there any formal sporran options that don't include fur? Would a nice black leather with silver trim/closures be okay? Or am I pretty much going to have to bite the bullet and get a fur one?

Jamie

Jamie,

It's unclear from your post whether you don't want fur because you don't like it (the feel?) or because you have (philosophical/moral) objections to fur products. If it is the latter, there are some sporrans sold quite cheaply which have "fake" fur. I bought one. The fur is synthetic, the back of the sporran is leather. It does look rather nice (I wore it for a wedding recently). In fact, when it arrived I thought it was rabbit, until you look at the back of the "fur" and see the material. Can't beat the price. I think there was another thread on this a few months ago. The eBay picture is not quite what arrived, less "woolly" looking and more like rabbit type fur.
Fake fur sporran

**jfellrath** · 12th September 06, 07:09 AM

Thanks everyone for the input. I'm glad to see that everyone who responded thinks you can have a formal sporran without using the fur. I've seen quite a few options online that I think look VERY formal without using fur.

To me, workmanship is the real factor in whether an item is formal or not. If someone goes out of their way to make a product that looks classy and portrays the attitude of "yes, I am going to some extra effort to look nice for this event," then that's a formal item.

I just wanted to see how everyone else felt about that as I don't want to be insulting to a potential event host by wearing something that is not considered proper, particularly in the realm of a style of dress I care about.

**auld argonian** · 12th September 06, 07:38 AM

I guess that I'm just curious....is your objection to fur purely on aesthetic grounds or do you have a moral objection to the use of animals for their fur? I certainly don't want to start a fur/anti-fur hubbub but it occured to me that if you didn't want to wear fur on principle, your host would be ungracious to criticise you for your decision if that were the case.

Best

AA