Vol. 01 No. 04
First off, sorry for the unannounced lapse between Combat Threads. With the semester getting underway, I was busier than I had expected. But, it is back now and I will try to keep to a more regular schedule. I always envisioned Combat Threads as a public notebook of my thoughts and research from the previous week. So, like this week, it may not have one theme, but a few snippets.
9/11 Merch
The 20th anniversary of 9/11 had me thinking about the clothing and, in particular, the “merch” that came out of it. T-shirts memorializing the event were rare in the immediate aftermath when the most predominant public sentiments were those of mourning and vengeance. As we know, cooler heads did not prevail in the response to the attacks, and many of the T-shirts reflected the anger of the time, in simple crude graphics.
Six days after the attacks, President George W. Bush said on camera, “There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said: 'Wanted - Dead or Alive'” referring to the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden. The wanted poster-style T-shirts followed soon after, likely mere hours after Bush spoke those words. These simple one or two-color printed shirts took the President’s words and created the “old poster” he’d imagined. Nearly all of them made one minor tweak to the President’s words, crossing out the “alive” on the warrant. What is also striking is how Bin Laden is shown, not as a caricature, but in a photograph. Previous propaganda posters -- which truly these shirts are -- often display the enemy, from Adolf Hitler to Saddam Hussein, in caricature. The photographic print of Bin Laden on the shirts reflects the “death of irony” that was amplified in the months after 9/11, that this ‘evil’ is beyond mockery. In this context it situates the T-shirts as earnest expressions of people’s feelings.
The Camouflage of the Dimes Square Set
I see a lot of camouflage on the street most days in New York. There are contemporary military patterns, vintage, commercial hunting patterns, and fashion patterns — which are by far the largest group — all on display. One particular pattern has been sticking out more than the rest. The Lower East Side, Washington Square Park, and Bushwick, etc. is awash in RealTree Camouflage Yankees caps, jeans, and T-shirts. But why is this commercial camouflage pattern that is usually worn by hunters and picked up at Dick’s all the rage in New York’s trendier corners?
RealTree has been bubbling up in the fashion world for a few years, Stüssy and Supreme have both used the pattern, and Yeezy was sued by RealTree for ripping off its pattern in 2018. The streetwear side of things is certainly one avenue by which non-fashion RealTree (clothing printed with the pattern not in collaboration with fashion brands) has been getting into wardrobes. This accounts for people like Tyler, the Creator and Lawrence Schlossman, of the fashion podcast Throwing Fits, and fashion undergrads wearing the camouflage.
For those of the Dimes Square Set, the fashionability of the pattern has less to do with its streetwear connections than the pattern’s historical and cultural meanings. RealTree has distinctly rural, “Red State America” connections. Its marketing is geared toward hunters, country music fans, and NASCAR. So how does it end up on the backs of young urban leftists who populate lower Manhattan? The pattern, which has been popular since the 90s, is part of the revisiting of 90s and Y2K style that has been popular of late. RealTree has been co-opted not in irony against “Red State America” but out of resentment against “liberals” who fear and loath that kind of “Red State American” culture. I think these political connections of the camouflage are key to its popularity.
The ultimate wanted poster RealTree (knockoff) Camouflage T-shirt.
Till next time,
C.W.M.
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