Pipe Band tartan trends

[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.