Uniform issues in Russia...

[Dayuhan]

Might belong in the social club, but it was in the news this AM...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101215/od_afp/russiamilitaryfashionoffbeat

Russia's chic uniform 'sends soldiers to hospital'

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia's sharp new military uniforms, created by a top fashion designer, have landed hundreds in the hospital after proving too thin to withstand ferocious winter cold, a state daily said Wednesday.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that between 60 and 250 servicemen have been laid up with everything from flu to pneumonia as Arctic chills sweep through the country's northern reaches...

Somebody forgot about General Winter. Bit of irony there I guess, though I don't suppose the troops are amused!

[bourbon]

Introduced in 2008, the parade uniforms designed by fashion celebrity Valentin Yudashkin are threaded with gold and more shapely and chic, in a throwback to the uniforms of the imperial Tsarist army.
Funny, it is usually the opposite. The military world has a profound influence on fashion, both historically speaking and in the present day. Fashion designers are known to troll militaria shows.

http://cache3.asset-cache.net/xc/72431162.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=E41C9FE5C4AA0A14A73D253E7135FE2EABED04F7F64512BA 1D346F75BE0A1EE9B01E70F2B3269972http://blogs.smarter.com/blogs/brad%20and%20angie%20ray%20bans.jpg

General Douglas MacArthur: the man who would sell millions of sunglasses (among other achievements).

[selil]

I'm reading Zero History by William Gibson and it seems that the entire thesis of the book revolves around how the military directly impacts fashion. It is a work of fiction but the examples are real world and consistent.

[Fuchs]

I read the title of this thread and expected a very different topic.

Post-Cold War Russia is notorious for its diversity of camouflage patterns.
A single company having soldiers in five or six patterns, often three different patterns on the equipment of a single soldier, was no uncommon sight in the last years.