Glengarries in unusual colours

[OC Richard]

As you may know I'm a piper who plays in a pipe band, and furthermore that pipe band attire tends to be monotonous; at a large competition one can see dozens of bands, or at the Worlds hundreds of bands, all pretty much dressed alike: black Glengarries, black waistcoats, black leather sporrans with chrome tops, and nowadays black hose.

So it was interesting to see, at last weekend's Seaside (Ventura) Highland Games, one of the piping judges wearing a brilliant blue Glengarry, and one of the piping competitors wearing a Glen of a colour halfway between claret and fuschia.

In my nearly 40 years of attending competitions I can't remember ever seeing a piper or judge wearing either colour, but there they are together



Here's the young fellow competing. The vividness, the fuschia aspect, doesn't come through in these photos.



and here's the judge taking a break

[Jock Scot]

Well OK not my cup of tea, but at least considerably better than the baseball cap!

[Tobus]

I kind of like the colours! But then again, I'm not a Glengarry kind of guy. But I think the piper looks quite unique and stylish, despite hovering on the edge of "matchy-matchy".

Where do you think these came from? I noticed that both of the Glengarries shown have ribbons/trim that match the colour of the hat, so they aren't from glengarryhats.com. Who else makes Glengarries in these colours, and would do them with matching ribbons?

[macwilkin]

The pipes & drums of the 1st Medicial Battalion, South African National Defence Force, wear a maroon glengarry:

http://1medpipeband.co.za/history.html

T.

[David Thorpe]

I have seen a few non-black Glengarries at games this summer - bottle green, grey and Lovat blue as I recall. Aside from pipe band uniforms, they look a bit strange to me, but not offensive or any thing of that sort.

[slohairt]

I kind of like the colours! But then again, I'm not a Glengarry kind of guy. But I think the piper looks quite unique and stylish, despite hovering on the edge of "matchy-matchy".

Where do you think these came from? I noticed that both of the Glengarries shown have ribbons/trim that match the colour of the hat, so they aren't from glengarryhats.com. Who else makes Glengarries in these colours, and would do them with matching ribbons?

They're probably from Robert Mackie. Royal Blue and Maroon are stock colours.

[creagdhubh]

Well OK not my cup of tea, but at least considerably better than the baseball cap!

Indeed, Jock! I used to own two Robert Mackie Glengarries (they have been sold off, as I only wear a Balmoral nowadays); one in black and one in navy, both with red toories. In my opinion, these are the only colours (or with a matching black or navy toorie) that I find pleasing in regards to the Glengarry bonnet. Thanks for sharing the photos, Richard.

Cheers,

[OC Richard]

Yes I do believe that these are both "real" Scottish-made Glengarries, probably by Robert Mackie.

Though "maroon" does not in my mind describe the colour of that fuschia-ish Glengarry. I know that colour names vary with each nationality and even each individual.

Many people around here use the words "burgundy" and "maroon" as equivalents. To me, "maroon" is the colour so popular for automobiles back in the 1920s and later, an extremely dark red-violet:



while the colour we Yanks call "burgundy" and the British call "claret" tends to be somewhere between maroon and red. "Claret and blue" is a very popular colour combination for sports kits in Britain



That Glengarry was considerably brighter, more fuschia-ish, than burgundy/claret and far brighter than maroon.

Likewise the blue Glengarry was brighter than what I think of as "royal blue" and I might describe it as being halfway between "royal blue" and what I would call "electric blue".

Goes to show how difficult it is to assign words to colours.

[Chas]

I think the danger is a person ending up with an article of clothing that can only be worn with a particular set of other clothes. While we all agree that too much 'matchy-matchy' is not a good thing, at the other end of the spectrum we get 'unmatchy-unmatchy', where nothing matches and everything clashes with everything else.

A case of "Did you dress yourself or were you assisted by a committee of blind men?"

Whereas a black Glengarry matches everything.

Regards

Chas

[David Thorpe]

While we all agree that too much 'matchy-matchy' is not a good thing, at the other end of the spectrum we get 'unmatchy-unmatchy', where nothing matches and everything clashes with everything else. Chas

I am relieved to read this sentiment from your side of the pond. I was beginning to think that the majority of TCHD wearers over there were either color-blind, or simply had no sensibility of the role of color (or colour, if you prefer) as it applies to sartorial matters. There is a large happy medium between "matchy-matchy" and "clashy-clashy". Based on many posts here, it would appear that many Americans lean toward the former while at least some Brits lean toward the latter.