"Cookie Cutter" Pipe Band Dress

[OC Richard]

To my mind band uniforms (or costumes as you have characterized them) have nothing to do with present day traditional civilian attire. People don't dress like they are in a pipe band when attending a wedding, or going to dinner with their wife to cite but two examples.

I beg to differ, as on these very forums there have been quite a large number of people posting photos of men in kilts attending weddings and other functions wearing black argyll jackets, white hose, ghillies, and the sorts of sporrans popular amongst pipe bands today (evening, day, and hunting).

Pop a glengarry on their head and a set of pipes in their hand and they could join in with most pipe bands and no one would notice. (And a few pipe bands do still wear balmorals, though they're considered somewhat old fashioned nowadays, due to their being so popular amongst pipe bands in the 1970s.)

Now, the question of whether this style of dress ought to be worn at weddings and other functions is another matter.

The question of what makes something "historical" as opposed to "traditional" is a difficult one to answer, but to me the difference between the two terms is continuity of use. So, the Great Kilt strikes me as historical, as it fell out of favour for nearly two centuries before undergoing a revival in recent times. Ghillie brogues, kilt jackets, Glengarries, and the rest of modern pipe band kit are traditional because there has been an unbroken lineage of use from their first appearance down to the present. They're all to be seen in The Highlanders of Scotland, in a vast number of Victorian and Edwardian photos, and in catalogues of Highland Dress makers througout the 1920s through the 1950s to today.

I didn't always realise this myself. When pipe bands and others began wearing black Argyll jackets around 1980 they struck me as novel. They combined the cut of a tweed Argyll day jacket and the fabric and buttons of a Prince Charlie. I thought of them as something new concocted to meet the needs of pipe bands, who were at that time abandoning the way they used to dress, which was either in full military style dress, civilian Evening Dress (complete with tartan hose and buckled shoes), or civilian Day Dress. At that time, in the late 1970's, many pipe bands, wanting something dressier than Day Dress but more practical than Evening Dress, were going to an odd concoction: Balmoral, Prince Charlie, long necktie, Evening sporran, bulky hand knit Aran hose, and ghillies. But by the mid-1980s the black Argyll swept away all in its path.

Well then I started seeing the occasional photo of a band or individual wearing black Argyll jackets in the 1930s etc. They appear in Highland Dress catalogues from the 1930s but only as dress for boys. A Highland Dress catalogue I have from the 1950s mentions them but does not list them. They appear to have no name for it but rather describe it.

Then jackets very much like it are to be seen in The Highlanders of Scotland, making me realise that they had always been around, but not very popular.

So even the black Argyll jacket, the universal modern pipe band look, goes back to the mid 19th century at least.

Anyhow, back to the subject of "cookie cutter" tartans, a comparison of the tartans worn at the 2007 and 2004 World Pipe Band Championships shows a huge increase in the use of bespoke/custom tartans (by bands or other institutions), trade tartans, and district tartans, and a decrease in tartans such as Royal Stuart.

Tartans appearing in 2007 which do not appear in 2004:

Monarch of the Glen
Scottish National
Scotland Forever
Spirit of Lanarkshire
Alvi
City of Rome
City of Brechin
Connemara
Niagra District
Ross and Cromarty
Roxburgh
Toronto Fire
Strathclyde Fire and Rescue
Drumalig (the bespoke tartan recently adopted by Field Marshal Montgomery, replacing Royal Stuart)
Cowal Highland Gathering
University of Strathclyde
Rangers (the football club I presume)
Grampain Police
Australian Highlanders

plus clan tartans such as Elliot, Fergusuon, Graham of Menteith, Gunn, Nicholson, and Scott.

I find it interesting the number of bands wearing modern trade etc tartans such as
Flower of Scotland
Holyrood
Millenium
Scotland 2000
Scotland the Brave
Spirit of Scotland
Scottish National
Scotland Forever
Monarch of the Glen

and the large number of district tartans.