Brown sporran with eveningwear?

[RichardtheLarge]

About the sporrans of your original post, this one, to me, is a hideous mongrel. In it elements of various traditional styles are fighting for attention, and losing.



This one is much easier on the eye, and sits in a tradition going back to the early 20th century when these brown leather pocket-shaped "day" sporrans appeared. From the get-go they often had fur fronts, the fur in no way making them anything other than ordinary "day" sporrans. However the silver bits don't quite go, and would be better left off IMHO.

For comparison some traditional day sporrans

I found your analysis of the first sporran quite hilarious, btw.

[David Dubh]

The original question is brown sporran with black tie?
The answer is no.
My highland wardrobe is a moderate variety, I own a black baretha Prince Charlie and a charcoal tweed crail jacket with waistcoat. I own 3 sporrans an all black leather day sporran a brown and black leather hunting sporran (my go to for day and evening) though not black tie event for that I have a black sealskin with an antiqued or matt finish metal cantle.
So not a large variety but something for most occasions. I’m sure that Jock would be horrified to hear that I wear my charcoal crail jacket for non black tie evening wear, however as I live in Canada and rarely attend an event that is all highland wear or with people who know better, the fact I’m in a kilt typically makes me the most formally dressed person at the event in other’s eyes.
As always though wear the best that you have and wear it proudly. However if you’re asking because you’re going to buy a formal wear sporran then get a metal cantle fur sporran in black or some shade of grey.
As always just my opinion for what it’s worth
Slainte David

[Jock Scot]

..........................I’m sure that Jock would be horrified to hear that I wear my charcoal crail jacket for non black tie evening wear, ...............

Not in the least bit. Why on earth should I be?

[Rhaco]

I won't weigh in on the "is brown leather ok?" portion of the question, but I will say that the rules of fashion still apply. Brown sporran leather = all brown leather. Highland dress or not, that should be one of the first rules they teach guys in "how to dress like you thought it through," school.

[McMurdo]

I won't weigh in on the "is brown leather ok?" portion of the question, but I will say that the rules of fashion still apply. Brown sporran leather = all brown leather. Highland dress or not, that should be one of the first rules they teach guys in "how to dress like you thought it through," school.

Black shoes and brown sporran are perfectly acceptable in Highland wear. We are talking a different tradition than Saxon wear so the rules of that dress do not apply here.

[Rhaco]

Black shoes and brown sporran are perfectly acceptable in Highland wear. we are talking a different tradition than Saxon wear so the rules of that dress do not apply here.

Gotta agree to disagree, but interesting take

[imrichmond]

Black shoes and brown sporran are perfectly acceptable in Highland wear. We are talking a different tradition than Saxon wear so the rules of that dress do not apply here.

I certainly agree with McMurdo on this. As OC_Richard has pointed out in the past, until about 40 years ago, pretty well all, if not all, leather sporrans were brown. When I began wearing highland dress in the late 1950s, I never saw a black leather sporran. I still have the brown leather sporran that was part of the uniform of a pipe band I played with in the mid-1980s. They were all purchased new at that time, as the band in question was a start-up, and the colour was never questioned; it was just assumed that leather sporrans would be brown. I also have the brown leather sporran that was issued to my father in 1941 when he joined the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. These sporrans were always worn with black shoes. I'm not sure what prompted the emergence of the ubiquitous black leather sporran around 1980.

It is perhaps worth pointing out that one of the "offending" brown leather sporran wearers in McMurdo's photos, the short gentleman in the middle of the trio in the first photo, is none other than Jim McGillivray, one of the world's top solo pipers and a man well versed in all forms of highland dress and greatly experienced in wearing it on all sorts of occasions. Of course, it may be that for this occasion, the brown sporran was the only one he had handy. Who knows? Nevertheless, he clearly did not hesitate to wear it.

[Jock Scot]

Gotta agree to disagree, but interesting take

As a longtime kilt wearer in the Highlands of Scotland, in fact for some 70 plus years, I would say that the traditional kilt wearers here wear a brown day sporran and black shoes and would be in the majority by some margin during the day.The Duke of Rothesay being a prime example of this. I think that my wearing black shoes and a black day sporran would be uncommon in the Highlands outwith pipe band circles and I am no musician! For what it’s worth, I have never been taken to task over it even by friends and family in the 40/50 or so years that I have been doing so, during the day.

Out of interest I wear the same black sporran for formal day events( morning suit equivalent) and minor formal( black tie) evening events. I no longer have the puff or inclination for serious formal evening events these days , so I no longer need to borrow a fancy sporran from one of my sons.

[Jock Scot]

I won't weigh in on the "is brown leather ok?" portion of the question, but I will say that the rules of fashion still apply. Brown sporran leather = all brown leather. Highland dress or not, that should be one of the first rules they teach guys in "how to dress like you thought it through," school.

Highland attire conventions are not necessarily the same as Saxon attire conventions and mixing brown and black leathers are perfectly acceptable in traditional Highland kilt attire and therefore saxon “ rules of fashion “ do not apply.

Welcome to kilt wearing!

[gsmacleod]

Gotta agree to disagree, but interesting take

Mixing leathers was something that took me a while to get used to but I don't even worry about it anymore, thanks to what I've learned here.

If you're interested, there's lots of great information in this thread:

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...xamples-85511/



Shane