When to wear fur sporan

[Mark Stephenson]

I am getting a new dress sporran that will be made of silver fox fur. It has a highly polished pewter cantle. Aside from black tie evening events, when else would it be appropriate to wear? Is it OK to wear in the evening in general, or in semi-dress (e.g. tweed argyle jacket ) events such as going to a nice restaurant? I’m a bit confused about what kind of sporran to wear in the evening when the occasion is not formal.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I am getting a new dress sporran that will be made of silver fox fur. It has a highly polished pewter cantle. Aside from black tie evening events, when else would it be appropriate to wear? Is it OK to wear in the evening in general, or in semi-dress (e.g. tweed argyle jacket ) events such as going to a nice restaurant? I’m a bit confused about what kind of sporran to wear in the evening when the occasion is not formal.

Generally if the cantle is shiny-- silver, pewter, brass, gold-- it's a formal evening wear item. For dressy occasions (tie and tweeds at a nice restaurant) you are really better off with a less showy sporran. Probably the most versatile sporran is the traditional full-mask muskrat sporran, which is appropriate for all levels of dress with the exception of white tie.

[lethearen]

Love silver fox. Care to post a pic of the sporran so I can drool?

[Cygnus]

C.R. MacKinnon suggests that a cantled fur sporran is appropriate for day wear (just not for 'tramping about the moors').

Even with a recommendation from an expert like MacKinnon, I tend to agree with MacMillan of Rathdown's opinion that metal cantles should be saved for evening. When I see somebody wearing a dress sporran with daywear, I can't help but think that the salesman at the highland shop must have been both especially smooth and desperate for commission to convince the wearer that his most expensive sporran was acceptable at any time.

[SlackerDrummer]

Even with a recommendation from an expert like MacKinnon, I tend to agree with MacMillan of Rathdown's opinion that metal cantles should be saved for evening. When I see somebody wearing a dress sporran with daywear, I can't help but think that the salesman at the highland shop must have been both especially smooth and desperate for commission to convince the wearer that his most expensive sporran was acceptable at any time.

I know, right?

[MacMillans son]

I know, right?

I suspect some leeway may be given to the titled gentlemen in the photo

[Downunder Kilt]

I thought we were taliking about fur/hair sporrans with metal cantles for daywear. I just got lost with the pic of HRH and another wearing metal cantles with leather sporrans. Can someone tell me the connection?

[Cygnus]

I thought we were taliking about fur/hair sporrans with metal cantles for daywear. I just got lost with the pic of HRH and another wearing metal cantles with leather sporrans. Can someone tell me the connection?

We were - I just didn't specify a hair sporran in one sentence of my post, though I implied it. Apparently the hairiness of the sporrans being discussed wasn't inferred, so next time I will imply harder!

[OC Richard]

I am getting a new dress sporran that will be made of silver fox fur. It has a highly polished pewter cantle. Aside from black tie evening events, when else would it be appropriate to wear?

I have two answers to this...

The first answer is, in the highly systematised Highland Dress which evolved in the first decades of the 20th century, two types of sporran appeared

1) fur with silver cantle for wear with Evening Dress

2) plain leather, usually brown, with no metal cantle, for wear with Outdoor Dress (or Day Dress as it was called later).

In addition, reproduction mid-18th century sporrans, deerskin, with functional hinged brass cantles were also worn with Outdoor Dress.

This is how this looked (images from the 1920s and 1930s)











So following this system, a fur sporran with silver (or polished pewter) cantle would only be worn with Evening Dress.

But a half-century before this, this system did not exist, and neither did those types of sporran. Instead long hair sporrans were worn for quite plain Outdoor Dress as well as for Evening Dress- they had no other style of sporran to wear, save for antique sporrans and animal mask sporrans, which weren't nearly as popular as long hair sporrans.









And it's not uncommon to see Evening sporrans worn in the day nowadays either... a modern Scottish example:



In any case, I have chosen to go with the earlier tradition and I wear this Victorian goathair sporran with everything:

[thescot]

In general, I've always heard and gone with browns and brass for day wear, black and silver for evening. It works for me, and that coincides with HRH's attire in the above referenced photo.

Your silver fox and silver cantle sporran should be fine for any somewhat dressy to very dressy evening war. Even during the day, if you're in a black argyl with a black four-in-hand tie, it'll do fine.

It will be a little too dressy for usual day wear unless you're really dressed up. For that, almost any style brown sporran is fine. I'd go for a very plain sporran unless you can afford a nice pig skin or other pricier brown sporran.

At least, that's what I think.

And that's all I got to say about that.