Published: Sep 18, 2007
By: Jeff Meade
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| Lord of the Isles Pipe Band, stepping out with kilt hose, flashes and ghillie brogues. |
Full disclosure: If there’s one element of the bagpipe band uniform I really hated wearing, it was spats.
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| Spats, on the Camden County Emeralds. |
I wore them briefly when I was playing drums for Irish Thunder Pipes and Drums. Spats were a really bold fashion statement in the early part of the 20th Century, but I think it’s not for nothing that they fell out of style. For some reason, a lot of Irish pipe bands have a real thing for these decorative, button-down flaps of fabric worn over their shoes.
I never understood the appeal. I thought our white spats made us look like Scrooge McDuck. It’s not the reason I left Irish Thunder. (But it didn’t help.)
Spats aren’t the only unusual piper footwear. Here’s more:
Kilt hose. These are the big socks that rise to just a few inches short of a piper’s knees. They’re actually longer than that, but they’re made so that the top can be folded over, often twice, to form a thick cuff.
Kilt hose can be thick, heavy wool or a lightweight wool or synthetic blend. (Often, bands wear lighter hose in warm weather.) They can be plain, with maybe a light pattern, or they can be fancy.
One great example of fancy: “popcorn” socks. The tops consist of a checkerboard pattern of small puffed bits of fabric that look like … popcorn. Watch some of the bands in Wildwood this weekend—some of them will be wearing them. Occasionally, the “popcorn” part is a separate piece that slides over the socks underneath; sometimes they’re attached.
Hose flashes. When the bands march past, you’ll notice little flaps of fabric sticking out from under the cuffs of the players’ socks. What you’re looking at is also another fashion relic: garters. They are definitely decorative, but they also help keep your kilt hose from drooping. (Nothing worse than droopy kilt hose.)
Ghillie brogues. Bròg means shoe in Gaelic, and ghillie means boy. (I guess that means they’re men’s shoes.) But unlike regular dress shoes, ghillies have no tongue, and they have long tasseled laces that are wrapped about the calf. Not all bands wear them. Even some bands that do wear them might not wear them for long parades. I’ve always found mine to be pretty comfortable, if clunky, but some pipers and drummers don’t like to wear them longer than they have to, and especially if there’s a lot of walking to do.
Sgian Dubh. Another Celtic phrase. It’s pronounced “skee(a)n doo,” and it means “black knife.” It’s a small, decorative ceremonial dagger that some pipers and drummers tuck into the top of one of their socks. (Not a requirement, but an elective.)
It goes without saying that you don’t want to be sporting one of these bad boys when trying to get through airport security. (If you’re wearing a piper’s uniform, there’s already so much metal in the buckles, brooches and belts, you’re bound to set off alarm bells. I once had to strip nearly naked at Philly International before they'd let me past X-ray. But a knife, even a tiny knife, is a whole ‘nuther issue.
