Hair Sporrans

[Bugbear]

love you

Strange comment...

Anyway, I seem to remember a discussion a while back about modern hair sporrans not usually being long enough; perhaps even that the sporran hair reach passed the bottom of the kilt on some older style hair sporrans.

Just for the record, I always wore the bottom of my kilt right above the top of my knee, and the hose about three or four fingers below my knee.

[Mael Coluim]

This thread pushed me over the edge to order a white goat hair 'John Brown' sporran from Josh at Skye Highlander Outfitters.

Below is the one Josh made for Longhuntr in a black hair. The jonesing has begun!

[dfmacliam]

I think, I too, will give into temptation and will have Josh make me a goat sporran...

[Bog Trotter]

Thanks for the info. gents

[Tobus]

Certainly long hair sporrans are appropriate for civilian dress, in fact, for most of the 19th century, long hair sporrans, both goat and horsehair varieties, were nearly the only form of sporran worn, whether for day or evening attire. Today the long haired "sporran molach" is reserved mainly for evening dress.

It should be noted that Josh (Skye Highland Outfitters) has two distinct lines of hair sporrans. One is more along the traditional lines of military style, the other is for civilian attire, and is modeled after (or inspired by) many of the historical civilian portraits of Highland gentlemen. So while there are some hair sporran styles that would probably only be appropriate for evening dress, he has some that are more versatile and are meant to be appropriate for day wear. I've got one of these on order (Skye's roamer #2).

While long hair sporrans seem to certainly have fallen out of style in the past several decades, they are still more than appropriate. I'm thrilled to see so many people here interested in them, and I think Josh is kind of leading a trend or revolution back towards wearing hair sporrans for all occasions. Same thing with diced/Argyll hose. I think it's a move in the right direction for returning to snappy-looking Highland attire!

[creagdhubh]

Certainly long hair sporrans are appropriate for civilian dress, in fact, for most of the 19th century, long hair sporrans, both goat and horsehair varieties, were nearly the only form of sporran worn, whether for day or evening attire. Today the long haired "sporran molach" is reserved mainly for evening dress. Here is what mine looks like, crafted by X-Marks very own Joshua Brown (NorCalPiper):

Your sporran molach looks very similar to mine, with the exception that I think the length of the hair on mine is longer. I too have a six tassle design and the cones and cantle are thistle embossed. The center of my cantle, like yours it seems, is made of patent leather. What is the silver crest affixed to yours? A family/clan crest? I opted for a silver thistle in the center of mine, since the cantle and cones are thistle embossed, and my buckles on my patent leather buckle brogues are thistle embossed as well-matches nicely throughout. I originally wanted to have a Scottish Wildcat, the crest of the Chief of the Clan Macpherson and the totem, or talisman of the clan overall, seated proper, made of silver to be affixed to the center of the cantle, but since the crest is the sole property of the Chief, I ensured that I didn't make that decision to have it done. Is yours your own crest (Armiger), or the crest of your clan's chief? Just curious. My sporran molach is a custom job, made by L&M Highland Outfitters in Nova Scotia. I love the style of the cantle, as I modeled my sporran molach after Lachlan Macpherson's of Catlodge. He is the lad pictured on the left in my avatar-originally a watercolor painted by artist, Kenneth Macleay in the 19th-century. I love the quality of my horsehair sporran and plan to order many more color and style combinations from L&M. How does Skye Outfitters' quality hold up with their horsehair sporrans? Yours looks very different from the ones shown on their website-higher quality it appears-I realize it was custom. I'd like to know more about the quality of materials and who actually makes the custom hair sporrans for Skye Outfitters. If you have any information you'd like to share in that regard, that would be great! Great looking sporran!

Below are various photos showing my custom, L&M Highland Outfitters made, sporran molach-as well as the watercolor portrait by Macleay, depicting Lachlan Macpherson of Catlodge wearing a similar sporran molach.

[longhuntr74]

Kyle....I believe Josh makes all of his own sporrans that he sells on the website...he can correct me if I'm wrong...but that was his main trade/hobby before he went full blown into the business. I know he made mine.

[Hothir Ethelnor]

Josh makes all the hair sporrans. that is correct. I think the lower quality look on the website is due to the pictures being cut out with photoshop rather than properly shot in a studio and keyed.

[Downunder Kilt]

This thread pushed me over the edge to order a white goat hair 'John Brown' sporran from Josh at Skye Highlander Outfitters.

Below is the one Josh made for Longhuntr in a black hair. The jonesing has begun!

I'm all with you. I ordered on on 24 March and I am already itching for the postie to arrive with it

[OC Richard]

I love those hair ones!

I used to have one just like this, an old c1900 one, that I bought at a gun show in the 70's:



I added a couple photos to my first post above, old images showing long hair sporrans with day dress:







Recently I've been wearing a vintage horsehair sporran with my Argyll jacket, but the problem is that it isn't any good for holding anything much!

So yesterday I got on Ebay a long goat hair sporran, modern made, that the whole body is one large pocket.

I intend on replacing the modern cantle with my wonderful Celtic Dragon vintage cantle. I'll post photos when I get that done.