doug. wrote: serious question, are none of you visvim lot never interested in getting hold of some actual proper vintage clobber. i.e the stuff hiroki takes direct inspiration from, like 20s shawl collar denim USN jackets, duxbak hunting jackets, old service boots stuff like that? I know a lot of you favour vis for the cuts, but imo (and this is prob because proper vintage is my thing) wearing that style in the original cuts looks a lot better…
maybe mil can come in with some sorta input. sayword dont bother
edit: emixam for instance you seem to be heading that way, adding cabourn and rrl to the mix. think that that's a good evolution of wearing that aesthetic, something that would only be improved by adding some og items to your wardrobe.
I have a lot of the actual stuff that helped roll Communism in the '80s and keep down cocksuckers like Saddam in the 90s. It was mass produced to be issued to a million man armed forces, it's rugged, pretty well built but it's not top spec or finessed too much, it's rough around the edges. For example actual US BDUs are heavy and hot, the actual ECWCS jackets have cheap toggles, 80s/90s US PT gear is poly cotton and sucks to run in, I don't have one but I've seen actual British combat smocks and they're cotton, heavy and non waterproof. There's a windproof version which is better but still kinda primitive and raw.
Now all this stuff inspired Tet and Skatething when they were doing w)taps in the early years. Thing is they improved it, BDUs are a better grade of ripstop, lighter and more comfy, cut isn't that much different, maybe a little slimmer than the real, they just feel good to wear, it's finessed in a way that Japanese can do to anything. Their "parasmock", taken off the British smocks is multi layer nylon, much more comfy to wear, better quality, all the hardware is top grade. It's finessed with small in-jokes to their friends in the logos and eccentric flipping of actual military insignia and iconography.
So the finessed Japanese eccentric obsessive version of something is usually more comfortable to wear, higher speced. We know that. But then having that label put you in a club that knows about that shop and that brand. Back in the 90s this had more meaning. It's like having a pair of tier 0 nikes vs GR back then, it feels special.
When I put on an actual pair of woodland BDUs that some Marine used in Panama I feel history, when I put on a pair w)taps BDUs it feels like a club uniform.
"tapskateers"