Pipe Band tartan trends

[gun eagal]

In other threads it is noted that the 78th Frasers and SFU both have new kilts, and I noticed the new kilts for both have darker palettes this time. In this massed band clip from Deeside where there is not one band with a bright red kilt. In fact, I think a couple of the bands are wearing the same tartan (Granite) woven in different colors. Aberdeen is known as the Granite city.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLxdcfnU5C0&t=675s
There does seem to be a trend in pipe bands away from bright colors toward more somber palettes. It used to be there was always at least one band wearing Royal Stewart or MacLean of Duart (Shotts).
The black hose is a trend I hope will be replaced by something a little brighter, although the bright white hose we wore 20 years ago was not my favorite either. SFU wore Lovat blue hose for a few years, and it seemed a shame when the fashion changed to black.
Where will it go next?

[OC Richard]

In other threads it is noted that the 78th Frasers and SFU both have new kilts, and I noticed the new kilts for both have darker palettes this time. In this massed band clip from Deeside where there is not one band with a bright red kilt. In fact, I think a couple of the bands are wearing the same tartan (Granite) woven in different colors. Aberdeen is known as the Granite city.

There does seem to be a trend in pipe bands away from bright colors toward more somber palettes. It used to be there was always at least one band wearing Royal Stewart or MacLean of Duart (Shotts).
The black hose is a trend I hope will be replaced by something a little brighter, although the bright white hose we wore 20 years ago was not my favorite either. SFU wore Lovat blue hose for a few years, and it seemed a shame when the fashion changed to black.
Where will it go next?

That is an interesting clip, thanks for sharing.

Yes it seems that they're all wearing dark Modern Colours or modern tartans like Granite as you say, except for one band I see wearing a blue/green tartan in Ancient Colours.

I do follow Pipe Band trends, I find it interesting. As you know a band set of kilts is an extremely expensive thing, resulting in bands tending to change tartans infrequently. So the accessories change more often than the kilts.

SFU was down here in Southern California in 2005 or 2006 and they switched hose (it was a two-day Games). One day they they wore a lovely blue, not Lovat blue, not Ancient blue, but a brighter blue I would call St Andrews blue perhaps.

I think you're correct that the trend in Pipe Bands is going to be towards more muted colours. I did a thread giving my predictions of where Pipe Band dress might be in 10 years: I think we will be seeing more "weathered colours" tartans and more tweed, somthing like this:





Here's the thread

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...-decade-96208/

I also did a thread several years ago showing that there's more variety in Pipe Band tartans than there used to be. You can look in the Worlds' programme where the list the bands' tartans, in the old days, and even up through the 1980s, most of the bands were wearing just a few different tartans, Royal Stewart and its variants, MacLean Of Duart, and the old military tartans. (There was a time at the Worlds when a quarter of the bands wore either Royal Stewart or MacLean Of Duart.)

Then there was an explosion in new Fashion Tartans and District Tartans and Commemorative Tartans and such.

In the last decade or so some of the top Grade One bands are having bespoke tartans woven:

Field Marshal Montgomery: Drumalig
78th Fraser Highlanders: 78th Fraser Highlanders
Scottish Power: Scottish Power
Australia Highlanders: Australia Highlanders
Lomond & Clyde: Lomond & Clyde
New Zealand Police: Clan MacLeod Society Centenary

And bands like SFU doing traditional tartans but in special colours.

Looking back, I did find this review I did of the dress at the 2019 Worlds, where I talk about tartans a bit.

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...onships-95744/

2018

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...-2018-a-94390/

[gun eagal]

That's fascinating. Thanks for sharing your research.
Pipe bands direct trends, maybe, because it's the only kit many pipers have in the closet. So we see them wearing it outside Highland games, at funerals and weddings, so that's what people who want to get into Highland dress see as the standard. My own kit is very "pipe band", even though I'm not in one. I am in the process of changing it and going towards something more akin to what you suggest pipe bands will wear in the future. I think I'll go with a muted tartan rather than a weathered one after reading your prediction, just so I don't end up looking "pipe band" again. Although there is nothing wrong with that.
The first pipe band I was in bought kilts from the Canadian Black Watch when they were disbanded. There were some kilts from the 1920's in the lot we got. They were extremely heavy weight, like horse blankets. Many were incredibly small. Then I graduated to a band with full military kit, including feather bonnets. That band was founded in 1902, I think, by ex-HLI pipers, so we wore MacKenzie tartan kilts and green plumes in the bonnets. The HLI pipers didn't wear feather bonnets, but other than that we looked just like them. Two of the senior members of the band were from Glasgow and one had served in the HLI during WWII. The Drum Major was ex-KOSB, WWII vet. He pushed us around with his swagger stick and told us to cut our hair. That was tame compared to what the Glaswegians said to us. Those days are long gone.
I would like to be a fly on the wall when SFU, always one of the best dressed bands, decides what their uniform will be for the year.

[OC Richard]

I used to have one of those horse-blanket military kilts!

I don't think it had ever been cleaned. (It had a distinctive smell.)

Thing about that kilt was, it would literally stand up by itself! I could buckle it and carefully set it on a flat surface and it would stay up; the kilt with nobody inside it.

At the time I was a super-skinny teenager so I could wear those army kilts.

My first band, back in the mid-1970s, had a WWII Cameron Highlanders veteran in it, and sure enough our kit had to be just so. That band wore Full Dress with feather bonnets, heavyweight kilts and plaids, and incredibly thick Melton wool doublets.

Anyhow my prediction about Weathered Tartans could be completely wrong! But I think Inveraray is pointing the way, as is Glasgow Skye with their brown tweed waistcoats.

Another thing, I too played in a band that had uniforms inspired by a Highland regiment except as you say wearing feather bonnets. Really bands should do Black Watch, Scots Guards, or RSDG uniforms if they want feather bonnets, but that band wore semi-Gordon Highlanders outfits. As we know their pipers don't wear feather bonnets! But we did anyway.

[gun eagal]

I don't think I a photo of myself in the full kit from back in the day, which is a shame.
Here is a photo of me in the first band, age twelve or thirteen:

I've looked for a photo of the Seattle Pipe from that era, but so far no luck.

[OC Richard]

Both of our photos illustrate the largest trend in civilian pipe band tartans.

In the early days of civilian pipe bands they tended to wear military-style uniforms and military tartans as well.

The alternative costume for civilian pipe bands was Evening Dress, which was often coupled with a traditional Clan tartan.

As late as the 1990s nearly all the pipe bands were wearing either military tartans or clan tartans.

In truth, there weren't many tartans other than those kinds.

Then came the explosion in commemorative tartans, Irish county tartans (which House Of Edgar introduced in 1986), US State tartans, fashion tartans (Highland Granite etc), newly invented district tartans (Isle Of Skye etc), and on and on.

At the Worlds in 2004 (my first year going) out of 206 bands

23 Royal Stewart (that's a tenth of the bands!)
20 MacLean of Duart
18 MacPherson

So 61 of 206 bands, well over a quarter, were wearing just three different tartans.

All of the bands were wearing old Clan tartans except for the 15 district tartans and a handful of new tartans:

Scotland 2000
Scotland The Brave
Millennium
Spirit Of Scotland
Flower Of Scotland
Loch Lomond Millennium

The next time I went, 2007, there were 25 new tartans not seen in 2004, and more tartan variety in general.

[gun eagal]

Here's a good example of the evening dress option that was so striking back in the '70's. We thought they were pure class. That's Bruce Gandy behind the bass drum. Bands in those days often had just eight pipers. The Grade 2 band I was in 1975(?) when we placed 1st at Santa Rosa had just six pipers and five drummers.

[imrichmond]

Bands in those days often had just eight pipers. The Grade 2 band I was in 1975(?) when we placed 1st at Santa Rosa had just six pipers and five drummers.

Very true. When I played with a grade 1 band in Ontario back in the late 1970s-1980s, we used to compete with twelve pipers and were considered a big band. Lower grade bands I competed with from the 1960s up into the mid-1980s often competed successfully with only six pipers (the minimum required), and occasionally even with one of the six as a "dummy" (i.e. with chanter plugged, so making only a drone sound and fingering as though actually playing). In those days, though, the judges were allowed to stand as close to the band as they liked and it sometimes happened that a judge would confirm his (they were all men in those days) suspicions by putting his head right down beside a chanter he suspected of being silent.

Interestingly, when I moved to British Columbia in 2005, I was surprised to find that some local pipe bands were still wearing the prince charlie jacket, albeit with a long tie and no vest, along with a a dress sealskin sporran and white hose. It was a bit like entering a 1970s timewarp. I hadn't seen that uniform in a couple of decades and had never previously worn it myself.

[gun eagal]

The Balmoral bonnet was very popular back then. Now I can't think of a single band that wears them. Here's another bit of ancient history, the CP Air Pipe Band. They came in second to us at Santa Rosa, which I think might be the only time they didn't take first. Now they are known as SFU. This photo was taken in 1976 at Cowal, where they placed first.

[Tomo]

I was in Edinburgh about 18 months back with my daughter (she was 3 at the time). One of the places we went in was the Celtic Craft Centre and as soon as we walked in she shouted look Daddy it's our tartan.

They guy in the shop was in the middle of packing up a full set of kilts for a pipe band in Macfarlane (Clan/Red) Ancient. There must have been 20 to 30 of them on the counter and rails.

I think he said it was a band in France - but one thing's for sure, they are not heading down the muted tartan route.

Of course, I have no idea what they will be combing this with. I tend towards a more earthy pallet to tone it down, but with BASB and a different sporrans I think the higher contrast would make the overall effect much more vivid - perhaps it's versatile option that's easy to dress up or dress down..