New Uniform

[Father Bill]

I'm not the expert to tell you the details - others here will do that, but as a general comment, you look first rate! Congratulations!

[OC Richard]

Looks like everything is proper to me!

The way the doublet fits, the position of the waistbelt, the position of the sporran all look military.

You'll hear people (Americans mostly) say that the bottom of the horsehair should be in line with the bottom of the kilt, but this has never been the case in the actual Scottish regiments. In fact the hair can go well below the bottom edge of the kilt, and usually goes a bit below.

What I will point out is that the wearing of diced hosetops, and flashes, varies from battalion to battalion. Most have three diamonds showing at the front centerline of the leg. Americans nearly always have their diced hosetops pulled far too high.

With the flashes, how they're worn varies from battalion to battalion. The Black Watch and the Argylls wore plain flashes (no loops) with the leading edge of the front flash coming to the front centerline of the leg, exactly in line with the centerline as defined by the diamonds of the diced hose.

Here are perhaps two of the smartest soldiers in a battalion, the Pipe Major and Drum Major. You'll note three diamonds showing at the front centerline, which is also where the front edge of the flashes come to.



With your hosetops, which appear to be black and green diced, you would have three diamonds centred going either black/green/black, or green/black/green. The cuffs should be carefully folded over to keep the dicing pattern neat and even.

The Gordons and Seaforths wore their flashes (which had loops) a bit further back, about at the 10 o'clock 2 o'clock positions. Americans often put them at the 9 o'clock/3 o'clock positions which looks odd.

So, both with flashes and the diced hosetops you'll have to see exactly how your unit wears them.

In the military, those doublets were worn with a white leather belt with a spoon-and-wreath brass buckle by most of the battalion. Pipers wore a wide black leather belt with large rectangular buckle, and a matching crossbelt with its hardware. Both waistbelt and crossbelt were pretty much always worn together on the Full Dress doublet as well as the khaki Service Dress tunic. Only with Battledress would one see the waistbelt worn without crossbelt.

Shells were (and still are) worn as a matching pair.



The above photo shows them in the correct orientation if seen from the front of the doublet.

Beware! You'll see Pakistani-made shells where they don't understand how they work (as an asymmetrical pair). They sometimes make the bars splay out (instead of being parallel). Here's a photo of the ugly mutant Pakistani shells



Looks like you're wearing two right-shoulder shells rather than a matching pair.

Anyhow don't worry you're wearing everything right! Richard

[A Lenape Scot]

Looks like everything is proper to me!

The way the doublet fits, the position of the waistbelt, the position of the sporran all look military.

You'll hear people (Americans mostly) say that the bottom of the horsehair should be in line with the bottom of the kilt, but this has never been the case in the actual Scottish regiments. In fact the hair can go well below the bottom edge of the kilt, and usually goes a bit below.

What I will point out is that the wearing of diced hosetops, and flashes, varies from battalion to battalion. Most have three diamonds showing at the front centerline of the leg. Americans nearly always have their diced hosetops pulled far too high.

With the flashes, how they're worn varies from battalion to battalion. The Black Watch and the Argylls wore plain flashes (no loops) with the leading edge of the front flash coming to the front centerline of the leg, exactly in line with the centerline as defined by the diamonds of the diced hose.

Here are perhaps two of the smartest soldiers in a battalion, the Pipe Major and Drum Major. You'll note three diamonds showing at the front centerline, which is also where the front edge of the flashes come to.



With your hosetops, which appear to be black and green diced, you would have three diamonds centred going either black/green/black, or green/black/green. The cuffs should be carefully folded over to keep the dicing pattern neat and even.

The Gordons and Seaforths wore their flashes (which had loops) a bit further back, about at the 10 o'clock 2 o'clock positions. Americans often put them at the 9 o'clock/3 o'clock positions which looks odd.

So, both with flashes and the diced hosetops you'll have to see exactly how your unit wears them.

In the military, those doublets were worn with a white leather belt with a spoon-and-wreath brass buckle by most of the battalion. Pipers wore a wide black leather belt with large rectangular buckle, and a matching crossbelt with its hardware. One wouldn't see, as I recall, it being worn like you have there, a piper's waistbelt with no crossbelt (such was worn with the Service Dress khaki tunic, but not the Full Dress doublet).

The shells you have were worn only by musicians (including pipers). Shells were in a matching pair. It looks like yours are both the same perhaps?

Anyhow don't worry you're wearing everything right! Richard

Right now this uniform is as far as the pipe major has set us up with . He says he plans on getting the pipers plaid too. Should I tell him about the cross belt?

[OC Richard]

Well, they say what's been seen can't be unseen, and I've seen thousands of photographs of military pipers, so I'm used to seeing the various modes, and what is worn when. Doesn't mean that that's the only way to do things, only that it's the traditional way to do things.

So for a piper there's Full Dress, which has doublet, waistbelt, crossbelt, plaid



Service Dress has the SD khaki serge tunic, and lacks the plaid, but otherwise is like Full Dress



For some reason the crossbelt was rarely worn with the Battledress jacket, even if the Full Dress waistbelt, sporran, etc were worn



I may as well put myself up for critique as well, here's the same Black Watch Service Dress as in the vintage photo above, but with the khaki drill warm weather tunic. My waistbelt is too low, it's on the support hooks, the problem being that the jacket is too long (need to get a shorter one)



Oh, there's another thing that American pipe bands do that I don't recall seeing in the British military, and that's wearing a hackle in a Glengarry. Piper's Glengarries have nothing, or a blackcock's tail, or an eagle's feather, depending on battalion. Hackles are worn on the TOS.

You see a Gordon piper above with the blackcock tail, below is the pipe band of The Highlanders with their eagle feathers



TOS with hackles

[A Lenape Scot]

Looks like everything is proper to me!

The way the doublet fits, the position of the waistbelt, the position of the sporran all look military.

You'll hear people (Americans mostly) say that the bottom of the horsehair should be in line with the bottom of the kilt, but this has never been the case in the actual Scottish regiments. In fact the hair can go well below the bottom edge of the kilt, and usually goes a bit below.

What I will point out is that the wearing of diced hosetops, and flashes, varies from battalion to battalion. Most have three diamonds showing at the front centerline of the leg. Americans nearly always have their diced hosetops pulled far too high.

With the flashes, how they're worn varies from battalion to battalion. The Black Watch and the Argylls wore plain flashes (no loops) with the leading edge of the front flash coming to the front centerline of the leg, exactly in line with the centerline as defined by the diamonds of the diced hose.

Here are perhaps two of the smartest soldiers in a battalion, the Pipe Major and Drum Major. You'll note three diamonds showing at the front centerline, which is also where the front edge of the flashes come to.



With your hosetops, which appear to be black and green diced, you would have three diamonds centred going either black/green/black, or green/black/green. The cuffs should be carefully folded over to keep the dicing pattern neat and even.

The Gordons and Seaforths wore their flashes (which had loops) a bit further back, about at the 10 o'clock 2 o'clock positions. Americans often put them at the 9 o'clock/3 o'clock positions which looks odd.

So, both with flashes and the diced hosetops you'll have to see exactly how your unit wears them.

In the military, those doublets were worn with a white leather belt with a spoon-and-wreath brass buckle by most of the battalion. Pipers wore a wide black leather belt with large rectangular buckle, and a matching crossbelt with its hardware. Both waistbelt and crossbelt were pretty much always worn together on the Full Dress doublet as well as the khaki Service Dress tunic. Only with Battledress would one see the waistbelt worn without crossbelt.

Shells were (and still are) worn as a matching pair.



The above photo shows them in the correct orientation if seen from the front of the doublet.

Beware! You'll see Pakistani-made shells where they don't understand how they work (as an asymmetrical pair). They sometimes make the bars splay out (instead of being parallel). Here's a photo of the ugly mutant Pakistani shells



Looks like you're wearing two right-shoulder shells rather than a matching pair.

Anyhow don't worry you're wearing everything right! Richard

It turns out that he ordered 10 of our doublets at once and the company mixed up the shells. Now I have a matched pair and my pipe major thanks you for catching that. He also said we might be getting the plaid and cross belt. He ordered one set to see how it goes.

[OC Richard]

Awesome! You guys are going to look great.

One of the several things that impressed me in your photo in the OP is that I can see that the kilt is well centred.

In the pipe band I play in I just can't get everybody on board with that! Myself and one other "old hand" who have been doing this for ages always have our kilts, hose, and flashes just so. It's the way we were taught back in the day, and the way we've always done it.

In a pipe band perhaps 20% of the look is what kit you have, and 80% is how it's worn.

Well done!

BTW I was posting some pipe band photos from last weekend's local Games and I was surprised and pleased to see a pipe band wearing their kilts nicely centred, and at a remarkably uniform length, around the top of the knee, the hose likewise worn far more uniformly than one usually sees. The band is Prince Charles from San Francisco.