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[OC Richard]

I would prefer if ALL CIVILIAN pipe bands did not use military attire and style...

Fair enough, but civilian pipe bands have been doing it in Scotland ever since the first civilian pipe bands were formed 150 years ago. (For sure wrong things can be done for long periods of time.)

Pipe bands were invented in the army, and more recently than many people think: they weren't authorised until 1854.

(There's that old epic film Waterloo where it ludicrously shows a pipe band.)

When civilians started organising pipe bands they were modelled in form and dress on the only thing there was model on, the military bands.

Eventually a new stream of Highland Dress emerged, civilian military-style pipe band dress. It was clearly civilian, the badges being a generic thistle or lion, the tartan being civilian. No-one in Scotland could mistake one of these bands for military.

A good Scottish Highlands & Islands example is the Isle Of Skye Pipe Band. Their doublets aren't a style worn by any regiment, nor are their tartans (they wear two different tartans, one for kilts, the other for plaids).



But there have always been civilian bands which have blurred the line, wearing military tartans and more or less following the dress of a specific regiment.

What looks particularly awful to me is bands that mix items from various regiments willy-nilly.