The Exact Moment Camo Jumped the Shark
- Najib Benouar
It’s finally happened: the camouflage trend has jumped the shark.
It all began innocently enough—the arbiters of the heritage movement began digging deeper into the history of Americana and a trend was born. At first, we were happy to see more bold patterns finding their way into menswear (even if, like the Navajo print before it, there were some lingering issues of decorum). But then labels began using it with wanton disregard: wingtips, backpacks, boardshorts... and then came the all-camo-everything look. We gave the Japanese a pass because, well, we admire their enthusiasm.
But then this photo surfaced on “The Moment” yesterday of Pharrell wearing a camouflage tuxedo jacket with matching shorts (a “shortsedo”?) from Moncler Gamme Bleu. (If we were to guess what his camouflage was hiding him from, we’d venture that it was the bottom half of his pants.)
The suit in question was designed by Thom Browne, which does give the look a bit of leeway toward the fashion-y end of the spectrum. But we must draw a line somewhere. And so, we’re decreeing a moratorium on civilians wearing more than one piece of camo simultaneously. Effective immediately and lasting indefinitely.
Really, we’re not asking for much.