What you bring up is an interesting and inexplicable change in fashion (well, just about all changes in fashion are inexplicable!)
In the Victorian period it was popular for long hair sporrans (by far the most popular kind) to end in a scraggly wispy way.
In the 20th century this slowly gave way to the desire to have long hair sporrans to end in a neat way, trimmed in a curve.
The most recent trend (and one which I despise) is cutting the sporran straight across the bottom. To me it looks ungainly and it unquestionably flies in the face of 200 years of tradition.
I applaud your desire to get the sporran right, because nearly always people do Victorian Highland Dress wrongly, especially the sporrans! They almost always wear the style of sporrans that weren't invented until the 20th century, and half the time wear jackets that weren't invented till the 20th century too.
What I've not done is try to trim a modern-cut horsehair sporran to look like a Victorian sporran, which BTW were usually goat hair. I think it could be done, but it would take time.
Some Victorian sporrans showing the scraggly bottoms (both the sporran body and the tassels end that way)
Here's one kept in nice shape, showing the distinctive wispy bottom of sporran and tassels
Note the lovely shape of the sporran on the left. People make them too squared-off nowadays.
Sometimes you see this Angora-like look
Though the wispy look is distinctively Victorian, it wasn't universal, and trimmed sporrans are sometimes seen:
This is the modern standard, trimmed to a curve
The recent Army straight-across cut, which certainly wouldn't do for a Victorian impression
Here's a classic late Victorian/Edwardian sporran, goat hair with sheet-metal cantle.
A classic Victorian look is a leather cantle with metal edging
Originally Posted by OC Richard
What you bring up is an interesting and inexplicable change in fashion (well, just about all changes in fashion are inexplicable!)
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