non-traditional accessory

**geomick** · 1st July 25, 05:45 PM

The current modern day sporran and the older pouch I use as a sporran with my great kilt are a little small compared to the space required for an oversized smart phone, wallet and keys (I usually am carrying a lot of keys). So I decided to move the phone out of the sporran and into a fancy new cellphone pouch. Works for all situations when I am wearing a belt with my kilt.

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**Jock Scot** · 2nd July 25, 02:29 AM

You are quite right a phone case worn on the belt would not be seen as traditional and one that is that ornate, or, should I say, more gaudy, certainly would not be regarded as traditional.. Nevertheless , its doing a useful job in these modern times.

**DCampbell16B** · 2nd July 25, 04:36 AM

I'm afraid I'm going to need something like that very soon. I'm back playing with a pipe band (the same one that got me started playing pipes almost exactly 50 years ago, but that is another story). The horsehair sporrans have enough room for a credit card and a short letter. So the last event was a concert rather than a parade, so that I could have another sporran right there. I swapped that sporran for what I thought was a nice, fairly roomy brass cantle sporran with a soft leather bag. It turned out the phone caught on the inside of the cantle and cracked the screen cover. Parades end up somewhere different from the start, ergo the need for a non-traditional to carry the phone, wallet and keys.

**geomick** · 2nd July 25, 06:35 PM

I specifically designed mine to use a separate disc of leather to secure the button stud. The screw back of the button is blocked from attacking the screen (a major design concern of mine, but far less severe with a button stud than with a modern snap).

Could have carved the pattern and left it unpainted, but especially medieval and renaissance artifacts support the concept of colorfully painted leather.

**stickman** · 3rd July 25, 05:06 AM

Originally Posted by DCampbell16B

I'm afraid I'm going to need something like that very soon. I'm back playing with a pipe band (the same one that got me started playing pipes almost exactly 50 years ago, but that is another story). The horsehair sporrans have enough room for a credit card and a short letter. So the last event was a concert rather than a parade, so that I could have another sporran right there. I swapped that sporran for what I thought was a nice, fairly roomy brass cantle sporran with a soft leather bag. It turned out the phone caught on the inside of the cantle and cracked the screen cover. Parades end up somewhere different from the start, ergo the need for a non-traditional to carry the phone, wallet and keys.

Glad to see you are back in a pipe band. Sure wish I was. Sorry you messed up your phone, I don’t have to worry about that as I don’t have a cell phone. Don’t want one, I had one when I was working, it was a pain in the bleep. Every time it rang it was another job.

**DCampbell16B** · 3rd July 25, 06:17 AM

Hey Ray! It only messed the cover, the phone itself was fine. Otherwise I would have been seriously annoyed!

**Janner52** · 3rd July 25, 02:30 PM

There are plenty of unobtrusive phone holders that will fit on a kilt belt available on the internet. There is always a danger of dropping something when rummaging in an overfilled sporran.

**OC Richard** · 4th July 25, 07:38 AM

About the old-school horsehair Pipe Band sporrans, yes there's precious little room. Some have no pocket at all.

What gets overlooked sometimes is that they were generally worn with traditional military-style doublets which (if made by the traditional makers like Thomas Gordon) had pockets.

In the late 1960s the army adopted those rather ugly and untraditional-looking Other Ranks horsehair sporrans (replacing the "Culloden" 1953 style) which for all their shortcomings (literally, they were 4 inches too short, and had hideous chrome cantles) were a big roomy fully-opening pouch.

Happily the big fully-opening pouch has been continued with the new RRS one-for-all full-length horsehair sporrans.

If I was in charge of a Pipe Band who wanted to do Full Dress I'd adopt those RRS horsehair sporrans not only because they're roomy but also because they're plentiful and cheap.

**OC Richard** · 4th July 25, 07:50 AM

Originally Posted by DCampbell16B

I'm back playing with a pipe band (the same one that got me started playing pipes almost exactly 50 years ago)

How cool! Congratulations!

I got my first set of pipes in 1975 so yes we're both 50 years on.

Offtopic, I started playing with a band around 76 or 77. Just prior to the time I joined they adopted a casual uniform for competition (Balmoral bonnets, waistcoats, and plain sporrans, hose, and shoes) but still wore Full Dress for gigs.

Sadly that band ceased in the 1980s.

**DCampbell16B** · 5th July 25, 03:54 AM

We wear just a shirt with the kilt in the warm summer time.
But we still have the full dress uniforms with tunics, plaids and feather bonnets for the cold weather.
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Scranton, Pennsylvania this last St. Patrick's Day. Cold, but not "too" windy.
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The parade before that on 1 March 2025 in Binghamton, New York was my first one in decades. Temperature was 32F/0C with 30 mile an hour wind. It was just too windy to wear the feather bonnets. I had fingerless gloves with handwarmers inside. I made it the whole way, but my playing was pretty awful.
Anyway, the sporran only holds my drivers license and a credit card, and keys if I jam them in. It turns out my tunic is one of those that doesn't have pockets.

I don't know who made them, but at least they are warm.
But we are getting pretty far afield from the original post...