Tartans that match with Oxblood Sporran?

[MHorne39]

Hello!

I’ve recently been thinking of upgrading my sporran, and the Oxblood leather color has really caught my eye, but I’m wondering what tartans/what ‘genre’ of tartan would go well with Oxblood? I’m thinking a mainly black sporran with Oxblood accents. I’m guessing nothing with bold reds, but can anyone with a better grasp of color theory/fashion give me some pointers on colors/pallettes (modern, ancient/etc that would work better with the reddish brown leather?

Thanks in advance!
Matt

[Jock Scot]

I respectfully suggest that you don’t get too wound up about matching colours with kilt attire if I were you. It’s not something that experienced kilt wearers bother about too much.

[OC Richard]

Hello!

The leather-color Oxblood has really caught my eye, but I’m wondering what tartans/what ‘genre’ of tartan would go well with Oxblood? I’m thinking a mainly black sporran with Oxblood accents.

I’m guessing nothing with bold reds, but can anyone with a better grasp of color theory/fashion give me some pointers on colors/palettes (modern, ancient/etc that would work better with the reddish-brown leather?

I'm one of those "traditional" people, and as Jock says the entire concept of matching leather colours has never existed in traditional Highland Dress.

Leather "Day Dress" sporrans emerged near the beginning of the 20th century and they were always brown, ranging from a mid/light ginger or russet down to a quite dark brown (often mistaken for black nowadays).

Shoes were nearly always black, thus the outlier would be having a gent with matching shoes and leather sporran.

However putting tradition aside, there are current Highland Dress makers in Scotland who do go in for "fashion" outfits based on, say, a two-colour scheme with all the cloth items made in the same colour (kilt, jacket, shirt, necktie, hose) and all the leather items in the same leather colour.

These follow the normal rules of colour co-ordination such as contrasting one dark colour with one light colour, one cool colour with one warm colour, using the hue's position on the colour-wheel such as putting two Complimentary colours together (directly across from each other on the colour-wheel) or two Analogous colours together (neighbours on the colour-wheel) and so forth.

So, Oxblood being a dark red-brown, and brown being only a dark low-saturation red-orange, on the colour-wheel red-orange is straight across the colour-wheel from blue-green, the classic Lovat Blue tweed or Lovat Green tweed would compliment it (in the literal technical Art Theory sense).

Lovat blue and Lovat green are each woven from both blue and green threads, it's the proportion that makes the distinction.

Indeed gents have paired either of the Lovat tweeds with brown sporrans for over a century now. Though these men were unlikely to know the theory behind it, their eyes told them it looked good.

[OC Richard]

Here's examples of modern "fashion" kilt outfits done to strict two-colour schemes.

In the technical sense only the centre outfit uses two colours due to white, black, and all the greys in between being the absence of colour.

I find these outfits at best dull and at worst hideous. It shows the danger of matching things!



Contrast this to the traditional Highland Dress of the two flanking civilian gents at a Scottish Highland Games in Scotland c1960.

Both men have worn kilts since they were lads. (Donald MacLeod, a native Gaelic speaker from the Islands, left and John MacLellan right).

Note that Donald MacLeod's soft green tweed jacket co-ordinates perfectly with his sporran both in the light v dark sense and the blue/green v red/orange sense, moreover he has lovely dark v light coordination between his jacket and kilt.

The only matching going on is between the tweed jackets and hose, it being quite the style from the 1920s up through the 1960s to have the hose "tone with" the jacket.

Note all three gents are wearing brown sporrans and black shoes.

[OC Richard]

Not quite Oxblood, but one of the two leathers here is close, with Lovat Green tweed.

[Tomo]

Both the Kilt Experience (www.thekiltexperience.com) and Afro-Celtic Sporrans (www.afrocelticsporrans.com) do various designs in oxblood leather - if you take a look at the pics on their websites there are lots of example with different tartans.

[Jock Scot]

Post deleted. Lost my train of thought!

[OC Richard]

Post deleted. Lost my train of thought!

I think this will help get the train back on the rails

[MHorne39]

I appreciate the input everyone, but I’m specifically looking for TARTAN colors that would match, not leathers/jackets, etc. And I know it doesn’t totally ‘matter’, but to me the whole outfit looks more visually appealing when the sporran complements the tartan.

[Father Bill]

I appreciate the input everyone, but I’m specifically looking for TARTAN colors that would match, not leathers/jackets, etc. And I know it doesn’t totally ‘matter’, but to me the whole outfit looks more visually appealing when the sporran complements the tartan.

Understood. Perhaps more appealing to you. Perhaps less Scottish to the rest of us. That's fine!

Notice that you're in Hawai'i. Do those Hawai'an shirts match anything? ;)

Just teasing. We all wear our kilts the way we want to, and that's the way you want to.