Which Hat or Nae Hat?

[FossilHunter]

Keep in mind that Balmorals are not berets.

A recurring thing in this thread is wanting to compare/conflate the two.

They have nothing to do with one another, they stem from different traditions and so forth.

In civilian Highland Dress, the dark green used on bonnets, jackets, and hose is usually called Bottle Green and has no military connexions or connotations, so you can put all those worries out of your mind.

In civilian Highland Dress the beige used on bonnets is called "fawn" (as pointed out above) and likewise has no military connexions or connotations.

Highland military No1 Dress doublets are an extremely dark green, nearly black, called Archer Green.

Highland military bonnets worn with No1 Dress are an extremely dark blue, those worn in combat and in several other forms of dress are the colour called "khaki" in the UK which corresponds to "olive drab" in the USA. (The military shirt colour called "khaki" in the USA is called "stone" in the UK.)

Just to get all that UK/USA colour nomenclature clear.

Anyhow yes if you're in civilian Highland Day Dress any of the traditional civilian bonnet colours is fine and none of them have any military connexions or connotations whatsoever. They're purely civilian colour choices.

Commonly seen are fawn, Lovat green, Lovat blue, St Andrews blue (all somewhat pale colours) and deeper colours such as royal blue, bottle green, claret, navy blue, and black.

Some modern gents at a Scottish Highland Games (the Argyllshire Gathering) showing a range of bonnet colours



The Scottish military Tam O Shanter or TOS in khaki (US olive drab) is made of woven yardage cut and sewn to shape, unlike traditional Balmoral bonnets which are knit and shaped.

To be fair, someone shared a link to a balmoral bonnet marketed as "special forces green" and another poster suggested that it may be inappropriate to wear a "significant coloured bonnet" to an event where there would be numerous military veterans.

I don't think anyone made the claim that berets and balmorals were the same. It was simply pointed out that if one cannot wear a bonnet in dark green because a military unit wears hats in that color, than you will quickly run out of available color options since military berets of almost every color used in balmoral bonnets exist.

I do however agree with your position that a balmoral in any color, when worn with civilian clothes (an sans insignia) should be considered appropriate.