The Complex Guide To Camo

Image via Complex Original

During WWI the French military called on the talents of artists to conceal their forces. The resulting ‘Section de Camouflage’, established in 1915, was the first officially sanctioned military unit dedicated to concealment, and produced a vast number of nets, observation posts, and other items of visual deception.

The first official French camouflage uniform was the tenue de léopard (leopard uniform) and was printed with a brushstroke camouflage that has since become known as the ‘lizard’ pattern. From 1951 the ‘lizard’ design was produced in many colour and pattern variations and was issued to troops serving in the wars in Algeria and Indochina. The last official ‘lizard’ pattern was issued in 1958 but the camouflage remained in limited use as late as the 1970s. Since then, many other nations have issued ‘lizard’ uniforms based on the French design.

The majority of French troops wore no camouflage from the early 1960s until 1990, as the French military considered it unnecessary and did not like its associations with colonialism. Trial patterns were produced in the early 1980s but were rejected because of their similarity to the German ‘fleck’ camouflage (Flecktarn). In 1990, when French troops entered the Gulf War dressed in olive drab, a new desert camouflage was devised that has become known as the ‘Daguet’ pattern. This was followed in 1991 by the ‘Central Europe’ camouflage, designed for use in temperate woodlands.

In 1929, Italy produced the revolutionary ‘telo tenda’ shelter-half using ‘telo mimetico’, the first printed camouflage fabric issued to individual troops. Although the pattern is not particularly effective, because of the short distance over which it repeats, it is the world’s longest-serving camouflage design – apart from changes in color schemes, this pattern was used into the 1990s.

During WWII, the fabric was used to make two helmet covers (one for infantrymen, one for paratroopers) and a paratrooper smock, all of which were first issued in 1942. The Italian camouflage pattern was coveted during the war, and German troops seized some of the fabric to make uniforms from it to their own specification. British and American troops were also known to wear captured garments printed with the pattern. In addition to this design, a three-color ‘beach assault’ pattern was made exclusively for the elite San Marco Battalion after WWII, superseded by a new San Marco ‘spray’ pattern introduced in the late 1980s. The fabric was used in the 60’s by artist Aligherro Boetti, over 20 years before Warhol’s appropriation os the US woodland pattern.

In the final months of WWII, the Germans created the ‘Leibermuster‘ camouflage. This revolutionary five-color design was intended to be issued to the entire armed forces, but because of the nation’s impending defeat only a few units actually received it. The Germans recognised that camouflage patterns appear less distinctive when seen at distance, and the layering of different colors on the ‘Leibermuster‘ attempted to address this problem. A new printing method was also used that meant the repeats in the pattern were not as obvious. The Germans paid close attention to the infrared-resistant properties of their camo patterns and, with its special combination of dyes, the ‘Leibermuster‘ was far superior in this respect.

The first American attempt at a printed camouflage uniform came in 1940 when the US Army Corps of Engineers produced a disruptive-patterned overall that was tested but never issued. By 1942 the USA had joined WWII, and in July of that year the Quartermaster received an urgent request for 150,000 sets of jungle equipment from General Douglas MacArthur, who was in command of US troops in the South Pacific. Fortunately, the engineers had already tested a series of printed camouflage suits and shown them to the Quartermaster earlier that month. One of the patterns was chosen and rushed through testing and approval procedures in order to get the new uniforms out to troops as quickly as possible.

Marines in the Solomon Islands were the first to receive the ‘frog-skin’ camouflage, as it became known, printed on to a reversible HBT coverall in a five-color ‘jungle’ version on one side, and a three-color ‘beach’ version on the other. Complaints from the many troops suffering from tropical diarrhea about the lack of a bottom flap were answered with the issue of a two-piece camouflage uniform. Field reports suggested that the pattern made mobile troops more visible, and during the 1944 Normandy landings the Americans wearing it were often thought to be Germans as, at the time, camouflage was not common among the Allies. Production of the uniforms ceased and a monotone green replacement was adopted in the belief that it offered better concealment in jungle areas.

The first camouflage to be used by the Red Army was the ‘ZMK’ white winter overgarment in 1938. Later that year the ‘amoeba’ pattern debuted as the first disruptive pattern to be printed on a Soviet uniform. This uniform, available in both one- and two-piece versions, was issued to snipers, engineers, and airborne and NKVD troops well into the 1950s. The uniforms were even used by trainees as late as the 1990s. In 1940 the radically different ‘leaf’ pattern came into service. Looking more like a floral design than a military camouflage pattern, it was later copied by Romania. Towards the end of WWII the three-color ‘TTsMKK’ uniform was issued, featuring a digital-style design. Two other patterns were trialled in the 1940s – one incorporated elements of both the ‘amoeba’ and ‘TTsMKK’ patterns and another was a simplified version of the ‘leaf ’pattern.

After WWII, surplus ‘frog-skin’ uniforms became particularly popular among hunters, and imitations by commercial hunting companies meant that the pattern became known as ‘duck hunter’.

In 1948, John Hopkins, chief designer of camouflage at ERDL, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, USA, designed a camouflage that became known as the ‘ERDL’ or ‘leaf’ pattern. It was never officially issued but select US troops wore it during the Vietnam War, as well as variations of ‘duck hunter’ and local ‘tigerstripe’ designs.

In 1953 eight camouflage uniforms (mostly hand-painted) were trialled in Panama and one pattern, called ‘flock’, was found to be very effective, although it was never issued. Another set of tests was carried out from 1960 to 1962 that included three existing camouflage designs – the USMC ‘standard’ pattern that became known as ‘Vine leaf’ among collectors (sometimes wrongly called the ‘Mitchell’ pattern), the USMC ‘Mitchell’ pattern (similar to the ‘brown clouds’ pattern), and the 1948 ‘ERDL’ pattern. Although the latter two were found to be the most effective, it was in fact the USMC ‘standard’ pattern that had been officially issued the decade before (1950s) on reversible helmet covers and shelter-halves in conjunction with the ‘brown clouds’ pattern. Any uniforms made in the ‘standard’ pattern are either very rare trial garments or were improvised by troops using fabric from the shelter-halves.

The US Army laboratory at Fort Belvoir, Virginia – then called the Engineering Research and Development Laboratory (ERDL) – had previously developed a four-color disruptive pattern commonly called the ‘ERDL’ pattern. It was never officially fielded but did see limited use by specific US troops in Vietnam. Scientists at the US Army Natick Soldier Center, led by their lead scientist Alvin O Ramsley, took on the task of improving the camouflage effectiveness of the ‘ERDL’ camouflage pattern and colors, making it an effective countermeasure both visually and against the image intensifier. They researched how the eye perceives color and performed merge studies, developing formulas to determine the distances at which pattern colors will merge with one another. They became experts in dyestuff chemistry, color science, and spectrometer measurement.

This ‘elm leaf’ pattern was worn by Cuban military advisers in Africa and later copied by South Africa and issued to reconnaissance units.

Cuban troops have used Soviet camouflage in the past as well this unique ‘elm leaf’ pattern, perhaps inspired by the 1940s Soviet ‘leaf’ pattern. The Cuban military has also used grey and green versions of the ‘lizard’ pattern.

The North Vietnamese were masters of improvised camouflage, disguising hundreds of miles of underground tunnels with bamboo, leaves, and tree sap resin, and confusing sniffer dogs with traces of US-issue soap at tunnel entrances and airholes.

The Vietnamese ‘tigerstripe’ camouflage was originally a copy of the French ‘lizard’ pattern, and was called ‘sea wave’, created by the South Vietnamese Marine Corps in 1958. Variations of the pattern were manufactured under contract in other South-East Asian countries (including Korea, Japan, and Thailand) as well as in Vietnam through the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP). Each contract was for a different pattern, resulting in a large number of ‘tigerstripe’ variations, with differences in the colors and the proliferation of the base color. What are known as ‘sparse’ patterns have more gaps between the black markings, while ‘dense’ patterns are characterized by more solid black markings. An even more diverse range of colors resulted from the garments being washed, with blacks, for example, fading to blue and purple hues. The patterns were also issued to Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (Vietnamese soldiers trained by the American special forces). To prevent them from standing out, US military advisers were ordered to dress in the same uniforms as the troops they were training, and therefore often wore ‘tigerstripe’ patterns as well.

During the war, local tailors were selling a lot of custom-made ‘tigerstripe’ dinner jackets and flying suits to American REMFs, ‘Saigon commandos’, and war reporters who were interested in the pattern’s fashionable qualities rather than its concealment value.

Developed by the Army Personnel Research Establishment in Farnborough with the help of civil servants of an artistic background, ‘DPM’ (Disruptive Pattern Material) is the distinctive camouflage of the British Army. The first trial uniform made of ‘DPM’ fabric was issued in 1969, mainly to troops in Northern Ireland, but the cut was based on an olive drab uniform produced in 1960; hence it was called ‘pattern 1960 DPM’.

The next uniform to be made with ‘DPM’ was called ‘pattern 1968 DPM’ but was not widely issued to troops until 1970. Later in the 1970s a tropical uniform was issued consisting of a shirt, trousers, and a bush hat. This uniform featured ‘DPM’ in a richer color scheme suitable for jungle environments and has since featured several subtle changes of color – in one version the brown has a red tinge, for example. Color differences also often occurred because the various manufacturers contracted to produce ‘DPM’ rarely used exactly the same dyes.

Later uniforms – ‘pattern 1984 DPM’, ‘pattern 1994 DPM’, ‘Soldier 95’, and ‘Soldier 2000’ – featured improvements in the cut and durability of the cloth, and colors sometimes varied (for example, the tan color on some of the ‘1994’ uniforms had a mustard tinge), but the distinctive ‘DPM’ pattern remained the same.

Animal prints have powerful symbolic value, reflected in this 1980’s Congolese ‘leopard’ camouflage pattern.

DRC government troops wear versions of the Belgian ‘jigsaw’ and French ‘lizard’ camouflage. The ‘leopard’ pattern worn by some units is an example of the use of camouflage for identification rather than concealment.

The ‘Night-Time Desert Grid’ pattern was introduced in the early 1980s on a two-piece trouser-and-parka uniform to be worn at night over the ‘six-color desert’ uniform. The design consisted of a base color over-dyed with two screens, forming a grid pattern with irregular blobs. The camouflage was designed specifically to help troops evade detection in the dark by night observation devices (NODs) but was discontinued in 1991, after the Gulf War.

DPM x Andy Warhol x maharishi

DPM celebrated Andy Warhol’s progressive steps towards reclaiming the symbolic value of camouflage and collaborated with the Andy Warhol Foundation. Many of the works simply reproduce the scales and colorways that Andy created in 1987, his inspirational material was directly taken from the US Army woodland pattern. Whilst restricting themselves to use of Warhol’s Camouflage Series, DPM also presented camouflage versions of other Warhol iconic works including the $ symbol and the fright wig Self Portrait, as well as the Warhol inspired colorway of DPM: Bonsai Forest pattern, created for this capsule collection presented by maharishi.

In its early days in the mid-1990s, before it began creating camouflage patterns, maharishi recycled military garments by adding simple screen prints or computerized embroidery and making changes in the cut. In 1995, the company began to purchase rejected camouflage cloth from the same UK-based print mills that supplied several countries’ military cloth requirements.

The first maharishi pattern, named ‘Cannaflage’, was created in late 1994 with Andrew Rutland and Robbie Hammad, and was printed in a very limited run. The ancient om symbols in the design expressed a passion for yoga and a simplistic comprehension of the symbol as a representation of peace, while its smoke trails and ganja leaves referred to hemp, the core fabric used in the label’s initial collection, for its environmental benefits.

The new generation of camouflage uniforms feature digitally designed patterns that, according to research, are more effective at disrupting the soldier’s outline. Although the Soviet Union created pixelated camouflage patterns during WWII and in the 1960s, these were not designed with the help of computers. The first computer-generated camouflage pattern used to clothe troops was the Canadian ‘CADPAT’ design, produced in 1995. The US Marine Corps began using a similar pattern called ‘MARPAT’ in 2002, and the following year both the Finnish and Indonesian armies also issued digital-style patterns. In the same way that numerous nations made their own versions of US ‘woodland’ camouflage in the 1980s and 1990s, many countries are likely to follow the digital trend set by Canada and the USA.

In the 1990s, printing technology enabled double-sided printing on much lighter-weight material and the Natick Soldier Center in the USA used a combination of pigment and vat dyes to produce reversible four-color ‘woodland’/’three-color desert’ camouflage patterns on a variety of fabrics.

In 1995, A Bathing Ape issued its first two camo patterns, ‘Rigid Raid’ and ‘Wood Chip’, both of which were designed by Skatething. The following year, Mankey’s ’Duckhunter Ape’ pattern was introduced in which an ape’s head is incorporated into a version of the ‘duck hunter’ camo used by so many militaries across the world. It has become the company’s house camouflage pattern and has been used in a variety of collaborations as an instant signifier of the BAPE brand. Medicom Be@rbrick and Baby Milo figures, Pepsi-Cola drinks cans, and adidas trainers are only a few examples of its widespread use. Other patterns reappropriated by BAPE designers include the Swedish trial pattern made by Barracuda, the Soviet military’s ‘sun-ray’ pattern, British ‘DPM’, the US ‘six-colour desert’ and ‘night- time desert grid’ patterns, and the American ‘ASAT’ (All-Season, All-Terrain) hunting camouflage.

After the elemental theme of Air for its Spring/Summer 2001 collection, and preceding the Fire, Earth, and Ether themes of its Spring/Summer 2002 collection, maharishi collaborated with Futura for its Water-themed Autumn/Winter 2001/02 collection. The fabric used for the canvases and the jacket on this page is printed with the ‘Fu Splinter’ camouflage pattern, which was inspired by a Polish 1950s ‘splinter’ design because, in keeping with the Water theme, it features the ‘rain strait’ motif. The pattern, which incorporates Futura’s pointman, his tag, and the maharishi temple logo, was used for garments as well as a range of canvases. These were each signed on the reverse, produced in a limited edition of a maximum of ten, and featured either the printed fabric only, the printed fabric with embroidery, or the printed fabric with hand-painting and embroidery.

In 1920 a directive was issued to hunter troops in the Swedish Army asking them to simplify their uniforms so that the soldier, “thereby unnoticed would be able to approach the enemy”. Regarding disruptive- patterned material, a shelter-half printed with large turquoise, blue, and brown waves was introduced in the 1950s. In the 1960s and 1970s the Swedish company Barracuda produced various patterns that were trialled, including a curious spotted design in woodland and desert colorways. The four-color ‘M90 splinter’ pattern was issued in 1990 for general use.

In 2001, maharishi launched the mhi label as an outlet through which to express certain themes that particularly appeal to the streetwear market. The label’s name is an abridgement of ‘maharishi’ and since its inception mhi has produced a variety of camouflage designs, and adopted the ‘mhi Sikh’ camouflage, based on the Indian military ‘palm frond’ design, as its house pattern.

Designed in India by Hardy Blechman with Showgato Chakraborty, ‘mhi Sikh’ was first used for the Autumn/Winter 2001/02 collection and incorporates the mhi logo, the om symbol (representing peace), and a kicking man in silhouette (an icon used in early Maharishi collections designed by French graffiti artist, Brendan ‘Kaywan’ Backman). Subsequent collections have included many colour variants of the ‘mhi Sikh’ pattern, as well as a variety of new camouflage designs, such as ‘Striped DPM’, a striped pattern made up of miniature nunchaku, and the ‘Nuncheck’ camo, an evolution of ‘Striped DPM’ that was overlaid with a version of the trial pattern produced by the Barracuda company in the 1970s for the Swedish military.

The third maharishi camouflage pattern, introduced in 1999, was originally inspired by a blue and white Chinese watercolour painting and was named ‘Bonsai Cloud Forest’. We took the pattern through several evolutions over a number of seasons, among them an attempt to create a typical camouflage-coloured version that resulted in the dense four-colour woodland/desert cross ‘Bonsai Forest’ pattern. Incorporated into the design were symbols of peace and nature such as bonsai trees growing from heavenly clouds, as well as temples and Japanese katakana script. The success of ‘Bonsai Forest’ in expressing my conception of a demilitarised and beautiful camouflage led to its adoption as the maharishi house camouflage pattern and was released alongside various different camouflages in subsequent collections. Inspired by some hunting patterns and the desire to assist in identifying pattern names, the Japanese text was eventually replaced with the English text ‘FOREST DPM: BONSAI’. In 2003, further changes were made when a dragon was added to the design and the camouflage was printed at a 45-degree angle.

This pattern was based on the distinctive camouflage of the British Army which was developed by the Army Personnel Research Establishment in Farnborough. The first trial uniform made of ‘DPM’ fabric was issued in 1969, but the cut was based on an olive drab uniform produced in 1960; hence it was called ‘pattern 1960 DPM’. The maharishi version also incorporates elements from the ‘Bonsai Forest’ DPM.

DPM collaborated with North Face Japan and Medicom Life Entertainment on a series of products all featuring the camouflage pattern, DPM: Rocky Mountain States. The Rocky Mountain States nomenclature is inspired by the Hugo Award winning The Man in the High Castle (1962), by Philip K. Dick, a science fiction novel of the alternative history sub-genre by Philip K. Dicks.

Inspired by maharishi’s house pattern DPM: Bonsai Forest, Northface looked to DPM to create a camouflage that reflected Northface's spiritual home, Yosemite national park. This five color pattern uses Conifer trees, elements of the Rocky mountains and pinecones to mirror this rugged terrain. First to be released is the Mcmurdo Down Parka , alongside this there is currently a tee and a sticker sheet with the Down Makulu Jacket released in March 2006. Medicom have produced a couple of variants of the FABRICK series mascot Henry plush figure in the same fabric, the first based on the North Face logo and the second on maharishi’s temple logo, as well as a series of home products.

DPM designed a unique version of the classic ‘tigerstripe’ pattern to adorn Medicom Life Entertainment products as well as Coleman’s range of camping equipment and outdoor lifestyle products. The pattern features Coleman’s lantern logo, camping characters and flying birds in addition to dragons, the maharishi temple logo and tibetan elemental calligraphy.

Brunetti’s pattern, inspired by the Vietnam M-1 helmet cover, also referred to as the Jungle leaf pattern or the “Mitchell”. These helmets were often decorated with graffiti by soldiers depicting symbols of peace, nihilism and drug use.

The Multi-Terrain Pattern (”MTP”) is the first time the British Armed Force’s core pattern has been changed since 1968 (that pattern, commonly known as DPM, was developed in Farnborough’s Army Personnel Research Establishment by civil servants of an artistic background). MTP reveals as much as it intends to conceal.

maharishi all-terrain night version excursion on the house Bonsai Forest camouflage pattern.