History of the plain leather day sporran?

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

So, sometime between the pre-WWI period and WWII the long haired sporran seems to have fallen out of favor and was replaced by the small fur evening sporran for formal dress or by the brown leather sporran for everyday wear with tweed jackets and more casual dress.

I have always felt (although I have nothing to back this up) that the horse hair sporran was a casualty of the Great War. I think that that military connotation was, for many people, just too horrible in the aftermath of the war; no one wanted to be reminded of the ultimate price paid to dismantle the German, Austrian, and Russian Empires, with the result that the military inspired horse hair sporran rather quickly fell from grace in the ball rooms north of the Tweed.

[OC Richard]

What is even more interesting is that a revised edition of the same book was reissued in 1945 with new illustrations...sometime between the pre-WWI period and WWII the long haired sporran seems to have fallen out of favor and was replaced by the small fur evening sporran for formal dress or by the brown leather sporran for everyday wear with tweed jackets and more casual dress.

Yes this seems to fit what evidence we have to work with.

I sure don't take the Rentons illustrations as definitive. They show an odd blend of the currently popular with the quasi-historical. Yet, it's not difficult to distinguish which illustrations are intended to depict current fashion and which are intended to depict historical dress.

Given the wide variety of sporrans shown, I'm quite sure that if the modern leather "day" sporran, shaped like a pocket with flap, existed at that time it would have shown up in at least one illustration. It also doesn't appear in The Highlanders of Scotland which is suggestive to say the least. In fact, every sporran style which appears in The Highlanders of Scotland also appears in the Rentons book, which makes it more difficult to dismiss the latter book out of hand.

[JSFMACLJR]

The earliest pictorial evidence I have seen for leather daywear sporrans being worn in place of either the long hair sporrans or full animal mask sporrans seems to date to the very late Victorian era, when photos of members of the Royal family were taken showing leather sporrans being worn with daywear dress, as can be seen in these examples from the 1890's and early 1900's:

This photograph was taken in the 1920's, as it shows the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth). They were married in 1923.

[HarborSpringsPiper]

And in the illustrations of modern daywear leather sporrans, I doubt that you will find any examples of black leather sporrans prior to the 1980's. As far back as I cn remember, leather daywear sporrans were always brown leather (of various shades ranging from buff suede to tan, medium brown, reddish-brown to chocolate) but never black.

Another interesting observation. I don't know how far back they might go, but I certainly don't remember seeing any in the '70s, as anecdotal as that might be.

The black leather sporran seems to have evolved alongside (and as a part of) the rent for hire garment industry which mostly rents out black Agyll jackets for daywear and Prince Charlies for eveningwear. It is only in the last 25 years or so that black leather sporrans have appeared on the scene

That may be, I really don't know. However, there has been a resurgence or boon in "all things Scottish" over this timeframe as well, accompanied by a cottage industry of leather artisans who seem to have expanded the medium as dictated by their artistic license, appealing to traditional kilt wearers, renfair attendees, etc. As we continue to look at historic precedents, I think we tend to forget the natural evolution all things take. My recollection of the early '70s seems to be of fairly limited offerings in accessories like daywear sporrans. I have a brown leather one that was ubiquitous at the time. McMurdo posted the same one that his father had from the '40s or '50s. Again, we seem to have some big holes in the pictorial record, so some of this seems a little fuzzy too me. Is the black leather sporran something old that is new again? I don't know.

- regrettably in my opinion, as they look horrible with casual wear/tweed jackets and are too dressy looking for anything other than very formal daywear occassions, such as daytime weddings, funerals, corporate business meetings, church-services, etc., where a black Argyll jacket might be worn.

I would agree that they look good with barathea wool Argyll jackets in black or navy, possibly other colors and that would be for dressier daytime events or evening affairs. I just purchased a tweed charcoal grey Wallace jacket/waistcoat, which I think should work well also. These black leather sporrans seem to fit a nice niche between what one could wear intermediary between a lovat tweed jacket and formal attire. Some even use them for true formal wear when they lack a formal sporran and I've seen some pictures here that show it works.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

King Edward VII (I of Scotland), shortly after the death of his mother, the late Queen Empress, Queen Victoria, in 1901. The sporran is virtually identical to day wear sporrans worn today.

[HarborSpringsPiper]

I keep thinking about this question of the plain black leather sporran and am wondering why we don't see it in the past, at least in some context of wear? If we look to the 18th century where we see brown leather sporrans, in paintings for instance, we certainly see other black leather, especially in the military. I certainly understand there is/was no prosciption against mixing leather colors, however, as they had black shoes, black belts, black cartridges boxes and black baldrics, why not black sporrans? They would even mix a buff baldric with a black scabbard at one point, so it is not an issue with mixing different colored leathers.

I don't know that there is an answer to this question. Certainly the brown leather would have been around the longest, going back to a simple hide bag. However, the other leather accoutrements started that way too and the black leather became the most common (I think that's a fair statement) in the military anyway.

Interesting food for thought.

[OC Richard]

King Edward VII (I of Scotland), shortly after the death of his mother, the late Queen Empress, Queen Victoria, in 1901. The sporran is virtually identical to day wear sporrans worn today.

I beg to differ. That sporran is completely different from the sporran I'm talking about, which is basically al leather pocket with flap.

The sporran in the photo has a metal cantle etc and is more analagous to a modern "evening dress" sporran I think.

[JSFMACLJR]

I beg to differ. That sporran is completely different from the sporran I'm talking about, which is basically al leather pocket with flap.

The sporran in the photo has a metal cantle etc and is more analagous to a modern "evening dress" sporran I think.

You seem to forget that day sporrans, too, had metal cantles. The sporran worn by His Majesty in the photo is different from what you had in mind, but nonetheless is very traditional, with a solid pedigree.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I beg to differ. That sporran is completely different from the sporran I'm talking about, which is basically al leather pocket with flap.

The sporran in the photo has a metal cantle etc and is more analagous to a modern "evening dress" sporran I think.

I never said that HM's sporran was the same as the one you were referring to. The king is wearing a day wear sporran with a metal cantle, a type of sporran which has been popular with gentlemen for several centuries, just as the "pocket with a flap" type of sporran has been worn since, at least, the mid-1740s.

[OC Richard]

Here's the modern plain leather day sporran in the 1931 Lawrie catalogue:



So we have a photo from the 1920's and a catalogue appearance in 1931.

That's the "history of the plain leather day sporran" of this thread's title so far...