1972 Fergus, Ontario postcard

[OC Richard]

The top photo in this collage is a postcard that's been sold for many years.

In cropped form it later came up for discussion in a Pipe Band forum where all the bands and people were identified.

I hunted around for images of around the same time showing the same bands and when possible the same people.

The 1972 photo's interest here on the Traditional Kilt Wear forum is that two of the bands are wearing traditional Highland Evening Dress. (Clan MacFarlane is also in traditional Evening Dress except for their slightly odd jackets.)

There is not a single item of their dress which isn't how any gent would dress for Evening from the 1920s up until Kilt Hire began eroding that form of dress starting c1980.

On the other hand, every item that we now associate with Pipe Band dress is absent, namely the Glengarry, Argyll jacket, black leather Hunting sporran with chrome top, plain hose, and Ghillie brogues. (Once again Clan MacFarlane's odd Argyll jackets are the exception.)

Some of you are now saying "but they're wearing bonnets and bonnets aren't part of Evening Dress!"

Yet but they're outdoors. If one of these gents went indoors in the Evening for Burns Supper etc he'd take his hat off, and be dressed in the same manner as all the other men at the function wearing traditional Evening Dress.