New Uniform

[OC Richard]

Looks like everything is proper to me!

The way the doublet fits, the position of the waistbelt, the position of the sporran all look military.

You'll hear people (Americans mostly) say that the bottom of the horsehair should be in line with the bottom of the kilt, but this has never been the case in the actual Scottish regiments. In fact the hair can go well below the bottom edge of the kilt, and usually goes a bit below.

What I will point out is that the wearing of diced hosetops, and flashes, varies from battalion to battalion. Most have three diamonds showing at the front centerline of the leg. Americans nearly always have their diced hosetops pulled far too high.

With the flashes, how they're worn varies from battalion to battalion. The Black Watch and the Argylls wore plain flashes (no loops) with the leading edge of the front flash coming to the front centerline of the leg, exactly in line with the centerline as defined by the diamonds of the diced hose.

Here are perhaps two of the smartest soldiers in a battalion, the Pipe Major and Drum Major. You'll note three diamonds showing at the front centerline, which is also where the front edge of the flashes come to.



With your hosetops, which appear to be black and green diced, you would have three diamonds centred going either black/green/black, or green/black/green. The cuffs should be carefully folded over to keep the dicing pattern neat and even.

The Gordons and Seaforths wore their flashes (which had loops) a bit further back, about at the 10 o'clock 2 o'clock positions. Americans often put them at the 9 o'clock/3 o'clock positions which looks odd.

So, both with flashes and the diced hosetops you'll have to see exactly how your unit wears them.

In the military, those doublets were worn with a white leather belt with a spoon-and-wreath brass buckle by most of the battalion. Pipers wore a wide black leather belt with large rectangular buckle, and a matching crossbelt with its hardware. Both waistbelt and crossbelt were pretty much always worn together on the Full Dress doublet as well as the khaki Service Dress tunic. Only with Battledress would one see the waistbelt worn without crossbelt.

Shells were (and still are) worn as a matching pair.



The above photo shows them in the correct orientation if seen from the front of the doublet.

Beware! You'll see Pakistani-made shells where they don't understand how they work (as an asymmetrical pair). They sometimes make the bars splay out (instead of being parallel). Here's a photo of the ugly mutant Pakistani shells



Looks like you're wearing two right-shoulder shells rather than a matching pair.

Anyhow don't worry you're wearing everything right! Richard