How to wear Higland dress????

[OC Richard]

For civilians our choices are entirely voluntary, although there are conventions, traditions, social requirements and aesthetics to bear in mind...

...civilian Pipe band dress requirements...

I should point out that the only requirement about dress in the RSPBA rules is that bands have "matching dress".

Bands, both from within Scotland and from without, compete in Scotland wearing slacks and are perfectly within the rules. There is no requirement for Highland Dress.

You quite succinctly state the situation: the "choices are entirely voluntary, although there are conventions, traditions, social requirements, and aesthetics."

Conventions, or "the way things are done", are quite powerful, so much so that bands all tend to dress alike. Again I will stress that the ONLY force operating is convention or fashion; there are no rules of any kind whatsoever regarding how bands dress, save for the stipulation that it must be "matching dress". A band from Texas could show up with matching jeans and cowboy boots and cowboy hats and be entirely within the rules.

Dress and Deportment judging is odd to Americans, because we don't have such a judge at our events. In Scotland these judges are purely following their personal notions, there being nothing about it in the RSPBA rules.

So we should throw out all talk of "rules" or "requirements" about how civilian Pipe Bands dress in competition, and instead speak of "convention" or "fashion".