Welcome back to Combat Threads. Instead of looking at historical events or trends, this week, I am going to be looking at a single garment. A large part of my interest in military clothing isn’t only how it ends up in popular fashion (that is to say, the clothes we wear every day from all manner of shops, from the mall to the thrift store) but also in collecting it myself. Since I was about 7 or 8, I have been buying militaria of one kind or another. Since the pandemic, this has mostly been online. I get a thrill out of hunting disorganized platforms like Depop, Poshmark, and Facebook Marketplace for diamonds in the rough. Spend any time around vintage military clothing in the fashion/style space (as opposed to the military collecting world), and one of the most common reframes you will hear about what makes these garments so interesting is that they appear to all have an aura or a history to them. What is that stain, blood? (it is never blood, FYI). What did these patches mean? The name tapes reveal the original owner, etc.
Very cool post! I have done the same thing with found military items, and have been lucky about half the time. I was going to comment that the pen pocket on the sleeve was commonly done in Korea in the 1950s and sometimes into the 1960s, but from his story it seems like the guy had it done in Vietnam.
this is great
Very cool post! I have done the same thing with found military items, and have been lucky about half the time. I was going to comment that the pen pocket on the sleeve was commonly done in Korea in the 1950s and sometimes into the 1960s, but from his story it seems like the guy had it done in Vietnam.