Button Shape

[piperalpha]

I was wondering if anyone knows why the buttons on Argyll, Prince Charlie, and other non day jackets are square or lozenge. Is this a civilian Scottish thing? Most of the regiments seem to have round buttons. Livery buttons are almost all round from what I've seen.

[figheadair]

I was wondering if anyone knows why the buttons on Argyll, Prince Charlie, and other non day jackets are square or lozenge. Is this a civilian Scottish thing? Most of the regiments seem to have round buttons. Livery buttons are almost all round from what I've seen.

I don't know why but they seem to have first appeared in the Victorian era, the 1880's I think.

[piperalpha]

Queen Victorias servant )John Brown) was photographed wearing a jacket with square buttons. I wonder if it’s a trend that became a tradition. Maybe no one wanted to make new styles of buttons. Kinloch Anderson has their own. The majority or Jacket makers seem to use the lion rampant button.

[figheadair]

Queen Victorias servant )John Brown) was photographed wearing a jacket with square buttons. I wonder if it’s a trend that became a tradition. Maybe no one wanted to make new styles of buttons. Kinloch Anderson has their own. The majority or Jacket makers seem to use the lion rampant button.

The Royal Family were always Highlandwear trendsetters during the 19th century and it is quite likely that they were the first to adopt them. Here are three keepers (ghillies) on the Balmoral Estate in 1858 and so, a couple of decades earlier than I'd previously thought.



But actually, they were in use even earlier. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and Prince Alfred by Sir William Ross, dated 1847.

[piperalpha]

Thanks for sharing. That’s very interesting

[piperalpha]

This popped up when I was on Facebook

https://youtu.be/typE49BRPR8

[OC Richard]

The Royal Family were always Highlandwear trendsetters during the 19th century and it is quite likely that they were the first to adopt them...Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and Prince Alfred by Sir William Ross, dated 1847.

Thanks for posting that Peter!

It's often stated that the Highland uniform was invented by the Victorian military, but in nearly every case the things thought to be military can be shown to have been worn by civilians prior to being adopted by the army.

How Victorian military things tended to go was

civilian use > worn by military pipers in civilian-style livery > adopted by the army for all Highland soldiers.

And here we see clear evidence of that process, as here are civilians wearing doublets with diamond buttons.

Pipers in two or three Highland regiments were wearing doublets as part of their civilian-style livery at that time (while the army as a whole wore coatees) and in 1855 the Highland regiments as a whole were put into doublets with square buttons, double-breasted doublets in fact:



Evidently these weren't found to be practical and a year later were replaced by single-breasted doublets with round buttons. However the pipers of the 79th continued to wear square buttons until 2006.

(Despite the book title, the piper pictured isn't a member of the Queens Own Highlanders, but The Highlanders, formed in 1994 from the Queens Own Highlanders and the Gordon Highlanders, hence the Gordon bag-cover and Gordon pipers sporran.)