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The Ladies' pipe bands always seemed to wear those high blocky buckled shoes, which must have been hard to march in. Melodie it's changed so much over the years! Now there are so many more women in piping, and in pipe bands they wear the same uniform as the men.īack in the old days, and this was still around when I started playing, women played in separate pipe bands called "Ladies' Pipe Bands". There really aren't a lot of rules unless you are playing for specific organisation that has their own. She has also piped in a mid calf length plain navy dress with a tartan fly plaid and broach, (the kind dancer's use, not a No.1 Dress piper's plaid). A plain white women's blouse and sometimes a tailored vest would round it out. She also usually passed on wearing the sporran or Glengarry and variably wore either nylons and women's shoes with a low heel, or hose and gillie broques depending on the occasion. When my wife used to pipe, she wore the band uniform in band, but for solo gigs, she had a custom made pleated skirt (pleated to sett) that was lighter than a kilt and fit women better than most kilts. Other than that, I am a fan of Calum's third option above. Most bands provide at least some of the uniform and you may be expected, for example, to buy shoes, shirts and hose to match. I am not sure of your future plans but if you play in a band, they will likely have a uniform they expect you to wear. I would encourage you to start looking but hold off on buying anything till you need to. While I don't like telling people how they can or should look, I do think these kinds of outfits can really misrepresent piping in general and perhaps be off-putting to people who might otherwise be interested in learning.
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The last category that I can think of is the (frankly) sexualised look (short kilts, high heels, and glengarry struggling to contain hair), which again works in certain times and places but perhaps not on formal occasions or on the competition field. It does look spectacular but a bit over the top for many dress codes nowadays. For what it's worth, I think this looks very professional, though it can't come cheap.Īnother style is what I'd categorise as "ladies pipe band" outfit, rare now but common up until the 70s/80s, which was again a sort of feminised evening dress, generally with quite a lot of lace, velvet, and dress tartan. Occasionally, and I'm hoping others can provide more concrete examples, I've seen in recent years a sort of slightly hybrid approach, with a sort of male outfit but with a feminised cut, lighter fabrics, and so forth.
Female bagpipe player professional#
To some extent, there is also the factor that dressing this way can be seen as a statement of purpose, of wanting to be seen as on on a level with the men.Īt the other end of the scale, there is the tartan skirt and blouse approach, which looks professional and if it's good enough for Gold Medal winners, well.! It also has the advantage of being cheaper and more comfortable. At the same time, I think it's fair to say it doesn't suit everyone. One option to simply dress as the guys do, and some people do this very successfully. The good news is that you have a lot more choice than we do.the bad news is, well, you have a lot more choice than we do :-/