OUR CULTURE

“The boys just call me camouflage” 

– Stan Ridgeway 

A written piece about why we dig camouflage is like a piece on big tits. Unnecessary. 

Camouflage is not something new or innovative within our ranks or circle of friends either. It has been done on swedish terraces and within different subcultures for ages. Some of which we were a part of in our teens. Stone Island has done it for ages. Ian Paley did camouflage during a time when it was all about posh Italian brands and patterns (Read: Aquascutum). Ralph Lauren too. 

War is not fun, but every boy wants to be a soldier growing up. Maybe it’s the esthetic of our adolescence – it’s in our DNA. We took that as far as we could when we grew up in the eighties, when playing war… a replica M16 just wasn’t enough – you had to be dressed in at least one piece of  camouflage as well. Most idols/role models we watched in the movies were Vietnam vets – Rambo, Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, Commando, Predator and the list goes on. If you make it out of a war, you’ll come back a little bit fucked in the head. But your physical strength will be unmatchable (no matter how much beer and shit you put into your body), you’ll be ready for combat 24-7 and you’ll get whatever girl you want. 

So movies were probably a big inspiration for pulling out a woodland tee, M65 jacket, or camo-shorts. So a camo craze swept the western world in the 1980’s, with teenagers and adults (mostly hunters) alike sporting all sorts of apparel in signature splotches of green, tan and brown. Retail experts, journalists and “experts” credited America’s military campaigns in Lebanon and Grenada for the trend and a manufacturer told TIME in 1984, “I think many people wear military clothes because they feel proud of the U.S.”. We are living proof that it was also all over Europe. 

It will get pathetic if we dig much deeper than this. But if a weird band t-shirt or a fucked up hair cut is like saying “fuck you” – a “normal” dressed bloke ads “maybe I’ll kill you” to that “fuck you” when wearing, let’s say a M65 Woodland.