Hair Sporrans

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I wonder if that is really valid. As I look back on photos from that era, families tended to dress up to sit for their portraits. It was a formal occasion, and they wore their best, whether day or night (and I suspect for light reasons it was nearly always day). I think the photos of Victoria's ghillies lying around with kilts and hair sporrans are probably misleading. My own family dressed in tails and top hats for their photos, but I sincerely doubt that was their daily habit.

All the same, I realy loved the photos. Thank you!

Remember, "day dress" does not mean the same thing as "everyday attire" nor does it mean "casual."

For a modern day equivalent, a "casual" look with a kilt might be a polo-shirt, hiking boots and scrunched down socks. While "day dress" would mean something more along the lines of a tattersal shirt, tweed jacket and tie, perhaps a waistcoat, and nice brown leather sporran. The hiking boots would be replace with maybe a pair of brown leather brogues. That might not be how you dress every day, but it is "day dress."

[OC Richard]

Now this has to be one of the nicest and most interesting of hair sporrans.

It's worn to this day by the pipers of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards.



Both the body and tassels are mingled horse hair.

The regiment says:

"The late King Geroge VI too a great interest in the Pipes and Drums, granted them the privilege of wearing the Royal Stuart tartan, and personally designed much of the uniform.
The sporran is of grey horse hair reminiscent of the grey horses, with tassles of black and red hair similar to the jowl plumes which hung from the officers' bridles. The feather bonnets have a yellow Van Dyke band..."

Here you can see that, the yellow zigzag band, unique in the world of feather bonnets:



Note that the front pipe ribbon is tartan while the rear is plain blue. Likewise, the rear ribbon of the old Cameron Highlanders was plain green.

[Sporrans maker]

love you

[Bugbear]

love you

Strange comment...

Anyway, I seem to remember a discussion a while back about modern hair sporrans not usually being long enough; perhaps even that the sporran hair reach passed the bottom of the kilt on some older style hair sporrans.

Just for the record, I always wore the bottom of my kilt right above the top of my knee, and the hose about three or four fingers below my knee.

[Mael Coluim]

This thread pushed me over the edge to order a white goat hair 'John Brown' sporran from Josh at Skye Highlander Outfitters.

Below is the one Josh made for Longhuntr in a black hair. The jonesing has begun!

[Downunder Kilt]

This thread pushed me over the edge to order a white goat hair 'John Brown' sporran from Josh at Skye Highlander Outfitters.

Below is the one Josh made for Longhuntr in a black hair. The jonesing has begun!

I'm all with you. I ordered on on 24 March and I am already itching for the postie to arrive with it

[OC Richard]

I love those hair ones!

I used to have one just like this, an old c1900 one, that I bought at a gun show in the 70's:



I added a couple photos to my first post above, old images showing long hair sporrans with day dress:







Recently I've been wearing a vintage horsehair sporran with my Argyll jacket, but the problem is that it isn't any good for holding anything much!

So yesterday I got on Ebay a long goat hair sporran, modern made, that the whole body is one large pocket.

I intend on replacing the modern cantle with my wonderful Celtic Dragon vintage cantle. I'll post photos when I get that done.

[dfmacliam]

I think, I too, will give into temptation and will have Josh make me a goat sporran...

[Bog Trotter]

Thanks for the info. gents

[Tobus]

Certainly long hair sporrans are appropriate for civilian dress, in fact, for most of the 19th century, long hair sporrans, both goat and horsehair varieties, were nearly the only form of sporran worn, whether for day or evening attire. Today the long haired "sporran molach" is reserved mainly for evening dress.

It should be noted that Josh (Skye Highland Outfitters) has two distinct lines of hair sporrans. One is more along the traditional lines of military style, the other is for civilian attire, and is modeled after (or inspired by) many of the historical civilian portraits of Highland gentlemen. So while there are some hair sporran styles that would probably only be appropriate for evening dress, he has some that are more versatile and are meant to be appropriate for day wear. I've got one of these on order (Skye's roamer #2).

While long hair sporrans seem to certainly have fallen out of style in the past several decades, they are still more than appropriate. I'm thrilled to see so many people here interested in them, and I think Josh is kind of leading a trend or revolution back towards wearing hair sporrans for all occasions. Same thing with diced/Argyll hose. I think it's a move in the right direction for returning to snappy-looking Highland attire!