What am I about this time?
To be inconspicuous, to blend in, to conceal, to deceive....to be invisible?
Camouflage... fooling the observer.
The first wearers of camouflage were hunters. Hunters are close to nature, so they know how animals make themselves less obvious. Early hunters often attired the actual skins of predators and acted like those creatures to blend into the environment. Wearing the skins also helped the hunter to believe he was acquiring the strength and skills of those animals.
And of course, what is the most famous literary reference to camouflage?
"let every soldier hew him down a bough/ and bear't before him: thereby shall we shadow/ the numbers of our host and make discovery/ err in report of us."
Malcolm and Macduff's men used foliage to disguise their advance on Macbeth's castle. It enabled them to blend into the surrounding countryside, and take Macbeth's defense by surprise.
Scots warriors stalked around the countryside studded with branches in their clothing, just like a present day hunter might, hoping to take his prey by surprise.
Camouflage has quite a story, much of it recorded by Tim Newark, in his book 'Camouflage'.
You can interpret, by the cover, fashion is as much a part of that story, as is the military.
It connects with the exhibition The (British) Imperial War Museum presented in 2007.
The birth of modern camouflage was a consequence of the development and use of the aeroplane in the first World War. Aerial reconnaissance was used to spot enemy position, so creativity in the military arts of disguise became a necessity. Armies used camouflage to hide equipment and locations.
To begin with, it was all about decoy human heads, bodies and false trees. Something like hollowed out replica trees with soldiers inside!
This link will provide some interesting information concerning camouflage trees, especially the video.
http://blogs.iwm.org.uk/transforming-iwm-london/2014/01/the-british-camouflage-tree/
Charles Chaplin's 1918 film, 'Shoulder Arms', amusingly referred to this form of camouflage.
Are you a die-hard Chaplin fan?
Want to see the actual film....click this link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZzHaUYG_iY
The 'Ghillie Suit' soon developed. This was a matching balaclava and 3-fingered mittens (apparently helped with the firing of a gun!) and the soldiers stuck greenery into the fabric to complete the effect, thus turning themselves into walking bushes. "Birnam wood comes to Dunsinane."
Rei Kawakubo"s CdG Spring/Summer 2001 collection 'Optical Shock', had an aspect of dazzle to it. It mixed camouflage with Op Art patterns and florals. (Op Art is short for 'Optical Art', where artists use shapes, colours and patterns in special ways to create images that look as if they are moving or blurring.) CdG's is such a fun mixing together of camouflage and 'dazzle' print fabrics.
Wonderful dress, would love to wear this to work.
Check the pattern of this shirt, it repeats a bit later in the blog. Is CdG ahead of itself?
http://www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/what-is/op-art
During WW2 camouflage patterns spread more broadly to uniform, encompassing hundreds of designs.
Each country created its own pattern with versions for different environmental conditions, like forest, snow, desert and jungle.
This fabulous shirt from the collection inspired my top of camouflage print chiffon and tartan, cut from a Viv Westwood pattern.
CdG also worked with camouflage print fabric in the wonderful Fall 2012/13 '2 Dimensions' collection.
Start off with cool camouflage patterned felt, then apply a floral print.
A very cool jacket.
What environment would you wear it in, to be concealed, to blend in?
I really don't think, people who wear CdG creations, blend in with the crowd!
Camouflage continues to advance. Many of these advancements are classified, for obvious reasons.
The coloured fabric patterns have been given a very high-tech twist. Designers are working with new software, that incorporate neuroscientists' updated understanding of human vision. It has been determined that fabrics with small squares of colour known as pixels are harder to see.
Apparently, Canada has made such great strides with these improvements in camouflage fabric, that to spot soldiers wearing the camouflage, observers must be 40% closer than they would have to have been in 2000.
Canadian designer Guy Cramer, is perfecting camouflage fabric in this area. He goes so far as to claim to be perfecting technology, that bends the light spectrum to make objects entirely disappear!
The programme presented in this site, will enable you to understand it a little more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LakB-9Hex8
Cramer said 'it doesn't use cameras, doesn't use mirrors.."
This is the famous image of a student demonstrating Professor Susumu Tachi's "see-through coat."
This image did use cameras to create the effect.
Still appears very effective though, doesn't it.
The latest camouflage patterned fabric technology cannot protect a warm body from being visible to infrared thermal imaging.
Infrared is a light beam invisible to the human eye, but the heatwaves given off the body are detectable. An IR scope or drone flying overhead can easily pick up heat signals from a body and warm equipment, which might otherwise want to be kept concealed.
A possom and a cat visible, via thermal imaging
Someone who thinks they are hidden behind a bush!
A lot of research is being undertaken on fabrics that can reduce thermal signatures. Infra-red and thermal vision equipment can reveal a human's heat signature at a large distance. Fabrics being designed to block human heat-signatures are improving and what have become known as stealth ponchos, can enable a person to "disappear", when wearing them.
Visual artist Adam Harvey's work focuses on countersurveillance and privacy issues. Although he initially started off as a freelance photographers, his work is now about how to hide from cameras and thermal imaging systems. He is a creator of "stealth wear", which reduces a person's thermal footprint.
The link below will allow you much more information and images regarding what Adam Harvey's 'stealth wear' is about.
https://ahprojects.com/projects/stealth-wear/
This is a nice wee video, which summarizes many of the things I have discussed so far.
https://vimeo.com/111059601
What about some dandy camo?
Comme des Garcons Homme Plus, S/S 2016 'Broken Tailoring' collection presents a touch of it. The young stately man is wearing clothes to allow him to participate in those traditional "class" pursuits, such as hunting, golfing & fly fishing, in a 19th Century fashion.
You might blend in very nicely,wearing these printed fabrics...tally ho hunting, invite only golf clubbing, specialist fly fishing and only the best maimai duck shooting, fortified with a single malt 'Aberfeldy' whiskey hip flask. Stately dudes blending in.
Liu Bolin, a Chinese performance artist, is nicknamed "The Invisible Man". He is a master of blending in. Much of his work is a silent comment, aimed at many of the Chinese government's totalitarian policies. Brave man.
This is a link to a TED talk given by Liu Bolin. Lots of good images of his amazing body of work!
https://www.ted.com/talks/liu_bolin_the_invisible_man?language=en#t-450488
Where Bolin uses his own body, Dutch artist, Desiree Palmen, designs and creates camouflage suits, which are worn in the specified environment to be used in the photo. Palmen first photographs the scene she wants to blend into, then she painstakingly creates and paints cotton suits to best simulate the environment. Her work is inspired by the increasing use of 'Big Brother' surveillance.
A good link to view more of Pulmen's work.
https://www.boredpanda.com/camouflage-art-desiree-palmen/
Joseph Ford, a London based photographer, worked in collaboration with knitting artist, Nina Dodd, to create a knitted camouflage series.
You can see more of their fun knitted camouflage collaborations via this link.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2018/jan/24/camouflage-knitting-in-pictures
Haruka Matsubara, presented an interesting graduation design project called 'Tokyo Camouflage'.
Haruka is totally immersed in her "Japanese-ness". This deep thinking and living concept is what she brought to her 'Tokyo Camouflage' project.
Here is an excellent site, which will enable you to absorb a lot more of the work she produced for the project, and why. I love it!
http://designmadeinjapan.com/magazine/graphic-design/tokyo-camouflage-interview-with-designer-haruka-matsubara/
As you can see, urban camouflage is a popular and highly relevant concept for artists to pursue.
In 1986 David Byrne, of Talking Heads fame,
directed the film "True Stories: a film about people like us".
It embraced the theme of urban sprawl and the recreational shopping mall culture (if you don't know what I'm on about take a trip to Sylvia Park Mall, on any weekend, and you will see it in action!) plus the pervasive influence of advertising/media, and the fast developing computer industry. Very perceptive David!
The film includes a fascinating fashion show sequence, known as "Dream Operator Scene". The garments were designed by Adelle Lutz, and some of them are cool camo-city costumes.
Check the sequence out via this link, it's endearingly surreal...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ-ZOVJXMes
CdG Homme Plus' latest collection, A/W 2018 'White Shock, the punk inside', offers hints of blending with the urban scene, cracked pavements, gravel and architecture. The fabulous dinosaur masks were made by Japanese fabric Artist, Shimoda Masakatsu.
I see a bit of a dazzle pattern in this shirt
And some fashion......
Jean Paul Gaultier designed this fabulous chiffon camouflage inspired dress for his 2000 S/S collection. Apparently it took 312 hours to create!
I love Junya Watanabe's camouflage look in this cool deconstruct ensemble from his 2006 A/W collection
He also worked with camouflage fabric in the 2010 A/W collection. I prefer the "I've been dragged through the jungle with a tourniquet tied around my right thigh" look myself!
Blend into the civil service scene in a Yukio Mishiba's t-shirt
And here, attempting to hide out among a dazzle of zebras!
A sharper image of the fabric, which would blend much better with the dazzle.
I'm playing around with the concept of camouflage and hunting.
Deer antlers and deer stalker's hat, made by me....the stalker wants to be hidden from the deer, and the deer wants to be hidden from the stalker!
Playing around with a reverse idea of camouflage. Do you get it?
Camouflage bunting.....so effective....
E didn't even notice it!
SLTSLTBsigning off regard camouflage.
Want to turn some coat hangers into a mounted deer head?
These steps, from Kieren Jones, will enable you to give it a go...
P.S.I have tried to show, that any shooting required, is by a camera!
Scots warriors stalked around the countryside studded with branches in their clothing, just like a present day hunter might, hoping to take his prey by surprise.
It connects with the exhibition The (British) Imperial War Museum presented in 2007.
The birth of modern camouflage was a consequence of the development and use of the aeroplane in the first World War. Aerial reconnaissance was used to spot enemy position, so creativity in the military arts of disguise became a necessity. Armies used camouflage to hide equipment and locations.
To begin with, it was all about decoy human heads, bodies and false trees. Something like hollowed out replica trees with soldiers inside!
This link will provide some interesting information concerning camouflage trees, especially the video.
http://blogs.iwm.org.uk/transforming-iwm-london/2014/01/the-british-camouflage-tree/
Charles Chaplin's 1918 film, 'Shoulder Arms', amusingly referred to this form of camouflage.
Want to see the actual film....click this link.
The 'Ghillie Suit' soon developed. This was a matching balaclava and 3-fingered mittens (apparently helped with the firing of a gun!) and the soldiers stuck greenery into the fabric to complete the effect, thus turning themselves into walking bushes. "Birnam wood comes to Dunsinane."
One of the most famous camouflage techniques in WW1 was known as 'Dazzle'. It was a boldly modernist and highly decorative disruptive pattern design applied to British ships. The complex pattern of geometric shapes interrupted and intersected each other. It was intended to break up the ship's form to confuse a submarine officer as to the course the ship was actually heading in.
A dazzle-inspired dress worn by Yvonne Gregory in 1919 and photographed by her husband Bertram Park.
Once upon a time, when shopping in New York, I came across a cool little shop which sold fab camo pattern ribbons. I couldn't not purchase them, could I!
They ended up on various garments I have created, ultimately inspired by CdG's 'Optic Shock'.
To know a bit more about 'Op Art', either of these two sites is worth a click.
http://www.ideelart.com/module/csblog/post/359-1-op-art-pattern.htmlhttp://www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/what-is/op-art
During WW2 camouflage patterns spread more broadly to uniform, encompassing hundreds of designs.
Each country created its own pattern with versions for different environmental conditions, like forest, snow, desert and jungle.
CdG's S/S 2006 'Lost Empire' collection, which was about cutting without a pattern, involved pieces of fabric draped and wrapped around the body. Some of those fabrics were cool camouflage prints matched up with wonderful tartans.
CdG also worked with camouflage print fabric in the wonderful Fall 2012/13 '2 Dimensions' collection.
Start off with cool camouflage patterned felt, then apply a floral print.
What environment would you wear it in, to be concealed, to blend in?
I really don't think, people who wear CdG creations, blend in with the crowd!
The coloured fabric patterns have been given a very high-tech twist. Designers are working with new software, that incorporate neuroscientists' updated understanding of human vision. It has been determined that fabrics with small squares of colour known as pixels are harder to see.
Apparently, Canada has made such great strides with these improvements in camouflage fabric, that to spot soldiers wearing the camouflage, observers must be 40% closer than they would have to have been in 2000.
Canadian designer Guy Cramer, is perfecting camouflage fabric in this area. He goes so far as to claim to be perfecting technology, that bends the light spectrum to make objects entirely disappear!
The programme presented in this site, will enable you to understand it a little more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LakB-9Hex8
Cramer said 'it doesn't use cameras, doesn't use mirrors.."
This is the famous image of a student demonstrating Professor Susumu Tachi's "see-through coat."
The latest camouflage patterned fabric technology cannot protect a warm body from being visible to infrared thermal imaging.
Infrared is a light beam invisible to the human eye, but the heatwaves given off the body are detectable. An IR scope or drone flying overhead can easily pick up heat signals from a body and warm equipment, which might otherwise want to be kept concealed.
A possom and a cat visible, via thermal imaging
A lot of research is being undertaken on fabrics that can reduce thermal signatures. Infra-red and thermal vision equipment can reveal a human's heat signature at a large distance. Fabrics being designed to block human heat-signatures are improving and what have become known as stealth ponchos, can enable a person to "disappear", when wearing them.
Visual artist Adam Harvey's work focuses on countersurveillance and privacy issues. Although he initially started off as a freelance photographers, his work is now about how to hide from cameras and thermal imaging systems. He is a creator of "stealth wear", which reduces a person's thermal footprint.
The link below will allow you much more information and images regarding what Adam Harvey's 'stealth wear' is about.
https://ahprojects.com/projects/stealth-wear/
This is a nice wee video, which summarizes many of the things I have discussed so far.
https://vimeo.com/111059601
What about some dandy camo?
Comme des Garcons Homme Plus, S/S 2016 'Broken Tailoring' collection presents a touch of it. The young stately man is wearing clothes to allow him to participate in those traditional "class" pursuits, such as hunting, golfing & fly fishing, in a 19th Century fashion.
You might blend in very nicely,wearing these printed fabrics...tally ho hunting, invite only golf clubbing, specialist fly fishing and only the best maimai duck shooting, fortified with a single malt 'Aberfeldy' whiskey hip flask. Stately dudes blending in.
I think Seattle's wonderful camo pants, which she wore on mufti day, are appropriate to put in here. The colour is spot on with the above models cool head pieces!
Numerous artists and designers have explored the expressive potential of 'Camouflage'.
This is a link to a TED talk given by Liu Bolin. Lots of good images of his amazing body of work!
https://www.ted.com/talks/liu_bolin_the_invisible_man?language=en#t-450488
Where Bolin uses his own body, Dutch artist, Desiree Palmen, designs and creates camouflage suits, which are worn in the specified environment to be used in the photo. Palmen first photographs the scene she wants to blend into, then she painstakingly creates and paints cotton suits to best simulate the environment. Her work is inspired by the increasing use of 'Big Brother' surveillance.
A good link to view more of Pulmen's work.
https://www.boredpanda.com/camouflage-art-desiree-palmen/
Joseph Ford, a London based photographer, worked in collaboration with knitting artist, Nina Dodd, to create a knitted camouflage series.
You can see more of their fun knitted camouflage collaborations via this link.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2018/jan/24/camouflage-knitting-in-pictures
Haruka Matsubara, presented an interesting graduation design project called 'Tokyo Camouflage'.
Here is an excellent site, which will enable you to absorb a lot more of the work she produced for the project, and why. I love it!
http://designmadeinjapan.com/magazine/graphic-design/tokyo-camouflage-interview-with-designer-haruka-matsubara/
As you can see, urban camouflage is a popular and highly relevant concept for artists to pursue.
In 1986 David Byrne, of Talking Heads fame,
It embraced the theme of urban sprawl and the recreational shopping mall culture (if you don't know what I'm on about take a trip to Sylvia Park Mall, on any weekend, and you will see it in action!) plus the pervasive influence of advertising/media, and the fast developing computer industry. Very perceptive David!
The film includes a fascinating fashion show sequence, known as "Dream Operator Scene". The garments were designed by Adelle Lutz, and some of them are cool camo-city costumes.
Check the sequence out via this link, it's endearingly surreal...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ-ZOVJXMes
CdG Homme Plus' latest collection, A/W 2018 'White Shock, the punk inside', offers hints of blending with the urban scene, cracked pavements, gravel and architecture. The fabulous dinosaur masks were made by Japanese fabric Artist, Shimoda Masakatsu.
And some fashion......
I love Junya Watanabe's camouflage look in this cool deconstruct ensemble from his 2006 A/W collection
He also worked with camouflage fabric in the 2010 A/W collection. I prefer the "I've been dragged through the jungle with a tourniquet tied around my right thigh" look myself!
Camouflage, it has so much to offer.
Just love the little camo sockettes my sister gave me
And here, attempting to hide out among a dazzle of zebras!
A coathanger deer,
followed by the deer stalker hat wearing hunter!
Playing around with a reverse idea of camouflage. Do you get it?
Camouflage bunting.....so effective....
Want to turn some coat hangers into a mounted deer head?
These steps, from Kieren Jones, will enable you to give it a go...
