Stone Island: Camouflage

Well, the good old camo pattern seems to be very "en vogue" this year, every dick & harry is releasing camouflage patterned clothing for spring/summer 2012. With a look on the A/W 12/13 collection of Stone Island it seems they would follow a trend. But Stone Island has never been a follower of trends and contemporary fashion and the camouflage pattern has quite a tradition in the history of this brand. If you take a look back on previous seasons there has always been a camouflage piece starting with the well known ICE Jacket from the late 80s.

                                             Stone Island ICE Jacket from the late 80`s (© FNYC)

As the most Stone Island collectors know, the brand always took inspiration from military design. So inevitably they also played around with the camouflage design as well in many different ways. It`s not everybody taste and I for example have only one favorite alongside all the camouflage releases by Stone Island. The handpainted camouflage jacket from A/W 08.

Handpainted Camouflage Jacket A/W 08 (© FNYC)

The next winter collection will feature a few different camouflage styles. The reflective camouflage jacket and a digital camouflage jacket for example, all in different colours and styles. The design of the new camouflage jackets remind me a bit of the camouflage patterns of battleships from the world war.

"When the Allied fleet came under constant submarine attacks Dazzle Camouflage was developed early during WWI by Norman Wilkinson when it was found that traditional camouflage failed to conceal ships in all weather conditions. Since at the time most ships were spotted with optical rangefinders, through which the viewer artillery and torpedoes can be targeted, the primary objectives of Dazzle was to visually disrupt and confuse the viewer as to the size, heading and speed of the ship. By using bold clashing patterns that intersected the lines of the ship it became hard to determine what type of ship you were looking at, how fast it was going and even if it was heading towards or away from you." (stimulacra blog)

Stone Island Showroom ( © Nitty Gritty)

As mentioned above, Stone Island will also release a digital camouflage piece (unfortunatly i can`t show a pic yet) and again, this isn`t just a gag. This modern kind of camouflage pattern is used on by the modern military forces. 

"Digital camouflage (or "digicam") uses small 'micropatterns', as opposed to traditional larger 'macropatterns' for effective disruption. The theory is that large blotches of colour with sharp outlines are easier to see, while "blurring" the edges of the coloured patches makes the outlines, and thus the objects, harder to discern. The name refers to the coordinates of the pattern, which are digitally defined, as well as the set of colours used.

From 1978 to the early 1980s, the American 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment stationed in Europe used a digital camouflage pattern, dual-tex, on its vehicles. During 1979 and 1980, the Australian Army experimented with dual-tex on its helicopters.

Battledress in digital camouflage patterns was first designed by the Canadian Forces. The CADPAT pattern bears similarities to the Bundeswehr's (Flecktarn). Many armies then adopted digital patterns. For example, in 2006 the South Korean Army adopted a digital camouflage pattern similar to the USMC's MARPAT for its Special Warfare Command units. The German, Danish, and Japanese military use camouflage that involves dots (flecktarn) instead of pixelated patterns. In 2007 the Kuwaiti army adopted digital camouflage in desert colours." (taken from wiki)

A jetfighter painted in digicam

A soldier dressed in digicam

The examples shown below are camouflage jackets released by Stone Island in the last seasons. Not always to everybody's taste of course but it shows, that the use of camouflage design has a small tradition at Stone Island.

A modern version of the Stone Island ICE camo

A tigerstripe camo pattern of the Stone Island Shadow range

German Sumpfmuster camouflage used on an A/W 07 piece (© FNYC)

Czech z.60 Jehlici camouflage used on an A/W99 piece (© FNYC)

Tigerstripe pattern - Stone Island Shadow