Should I forget about a brown belt and sporran?

[OC Richard]

I wanted all brown accessories, but nice brown sporrans seem very hard to find, so I just got one of the cheap ones from Pakistan, and brown belts are even harder to find.

First I'll point out that in traditional Highland Dress there has never been an emphasis on getting the various leather articles to be matching leather. The idea is foreign to Highland Dress, I think I'm safe in saying.

Even back in 17th century and 18th century portraits you can see brown sporrans and black shoes and black belts.

In the traditional Highland Dress that developed in the early 20th century "day" sporrans were brown leather, usually pigskin or deerskin, while shoes were nearly always black.

I can honestly say that when I started wearing Highland Dress in the 1970s the combination of brown sporran and black belt and shoes was the only one I saw people wearing.

In the army too, brown leather sporran with black belt and shoes.

About hard to find, that surprises me. Leather day sporrans are widely available in brown, as are civilian-style belts. It's very common to see them in cowhide that's coloured and textured to resemble the traditional pigskin.

Yes I would avoid Pakistani sporrans in general.

First, a look back into the early 20th century when all the "day" sporrans offered were brown (in the same catalogues all the belts and shoes offered were black)



Here's a selection of classic sporran styles offered throughout the 1950s and up to today by traditional sporran makers



and to bring it up to now, a current selection of brown "day" sporrans by L&M Highland Outfitters, a great maker of traditional sporrans

https://www.landmhighland.ca/product...brown-leather/

And you can get brown belts that exactly match the leather of your sporran, if you choose to do that

https://www.landmhighland.ca/products-page/waist-belts/

Here's my brown sporran and belt. The sporran is a 1953 MOD "Culloden" brass cantle on a new body done in 18th century style by XMarks member Artificer. The belt is home-made using an 18th century style buckle I bought in West Virginia in the 1970s.



Wearing the brown sporran with black shoes