Fashions at the 2019 World Pipe Band Championships

[OC Richard]

Bands can wear whatever they like/can afford.

Oh for sure they can. But in practice the leading Grade One bands set the fashion and all the lesser bands follow suit.

Pipe Band fashion has a distinct function: it tells the rest of the Pipe Band community whether the band is "in the loop", keeping current on the latest music etc, or whether the band has been living in a Pipe Band backwater somewhere and hasn't got the memo.

Experienced Pipe Band people can make an educated guess as to a band's playing level just by seeing a photo of it.

I made this statement on a Pipe Band forum and several people told me I was mistaken.

So to put it to a test I posted a photo of each of the following:

1) a Grade 2 competition band
2) a Grade 4 competition band
3) a noncompetition "street band" or "sweater band"

and I invited people to send me their guesses as to which band was which through Personal Message.

Every responded guessed all three bands correctly.

If I were designing a uniform I would go for a something like a tropical service dress jacket and a khaki field service helmet.

There was a band here, back in the early 1980s, that dressed like that. Here they are!



It's a mystery to me why they didn't go with a military tartan. Think of how much nicer that uniform would have looked with Black Watch or Seaforth MacKenzie or Cameron of Erracht or Gordon tartan!

For colder weather a military style heavy wool pullover.

Ah, a sweater band, as we call them here. Are there "jumper bands" in the UK?