Dressing for the dreaded 'semi-formal' event... advice appreciated

[Jock Scot]

First of all, welcome to the Rabble. Gosh, you really have studied the subject well. As a broad comment you must remember that we on this website do tend to obsess over the minute details of kilt wearing and whilst that is good fun, interesting to a degree, it does illustrate well that separating theory from practice is not always easy for some. You have had good advice above and the difficulties for newcomers are often in the form of overthinking the detail. Especially for those outwith the UK who do not understand the subtleties of British traditions in general and subtleties of Scottish kilt traditions in particular.

Take ties for example, If your "Gin and Tonics" Regimental tie is some dreadful combination of colours and matches absolutely nothing---as some do!---- are you not going to wear the tie with the kilt? Of course you will, it is what it is and one wears it come what may. Years of muck and bullets entitle one to wear it, so fashion and colour coding most certainly aren't an issue! It is this sort of thing that many outwith these shores wrestle with when making kilt attire decisions.

So alright, you have singled me out for a specific question about sporrans. Quick answer. A plain black leather sporran will be perfect for your event as its not formal. Events are either formal or they are not, this semi-formal thing is pure modern nonsense. Again we have theory and we have practice at work here, the theory says that one should wear a dress sporran to formal events and that is quite right, no argument there. The practice is rather different! Again for example, as far as I am concerned, find me a dress sporran that I like and I will happily wear it at the appropriate time, but since I recycled my dress sporrans to my children some thirty years ago, I have worn my plain black sporran to probably 99% of all the kilted events I have been to and yes, dress(formal) events too. No bolts of lightning, no untoward comments, no nothing, some may have their own thoughts on the matter though, but I doubt it. Those that know me and many do, know the reasons, those that don't know me are too polite to say anything------IF they have noticed and most don't know or even care! We need therefore, to be careful not to over-egg the cake with kilt attire and this is particularly easy to do with the sporran. However, this is real life not internet hair splitting.

So what am I saying? There are times and with experience( and with that comes confidence) one can adjust conventions a bit and overthinking can be sometimes a hinderance. Where many from outwith these shores tend to go off course is the lack of these two things and rigidly stick to the safe choices of the theory and end up looking like a tailors dummy or worse still, like a clown.