Pipe Band tartan trends

[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.