Border dancers, being the dark side of Morris, traditionally wear black outfits comprising a coat, trousers / kilts / dresses, often with suitably grungy fishnets and big boots. Outfits are usually topped off with decorated top hats often featuring tall pheasant feathers so border dancers can seem to be 10′ tall! Coats are decorated with long strips of black and /or coloured material called tatters.
Our coats feature long thin tatters, mainly black with a few white, silver and green ones mixed in. White and silver are for the Moonrakers’ moon and white and green are for the Wiltshire county flag. Our hats have a white band around them with our logo as a badge on the front. Long white tatters hang down our backs.
Finally, Border dancers originally painted their faces black as a disguise while dancing (they were begging for money which was illegal). “Blacking up” is discourage now so Border dancers generally use coloured face paints but we have yet to agree what our pattern will be.