Urban-Tone Clothing

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I've got a sweater that I believe they called oatmeal in the catalog; but it is kind of a grayish-khaki and reminds me mostly of coyote and deer coloring. Kind of like smoke/sage green might look without the green tint.

It is pretty effective in any environment - it blends in well with most concrete colors and disappears well in the woods/grass also. Wish I could find the color in a spray can, I'd do my rifle in it.

 

[George Hill]

Urban Cammo -
That depends on your area. If you are in New York on Wall street it might be a suit and tie.
If you are in a college town, then a sweatshirt and jeans.
If you are in Hollywood, it might be high heels and pink boa. Whatever.

For Urban Cammo - you don't blend in with the stucco and concrete - you blend in with all the other people.

Unless you are in Beruit with piles of blasted concrete from cratered roads and all that - then you'd want a muddy grey mottled outfit... but we don't have a lot of that out here in the USA.

Blend with the people. Be hard to pick out of a croud. So when someone says - "There he is, that guy over there..."
"Which guy?"
"The guy in the blue suit..."
"They are all wearing blue suits..."

511 cargo pants might be great... but I would hope everyone in your area is wearing them.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[sm]

George Hill,
Yes sir I agree.
That is what I do.
That is what my Undercover buddy did. He later went from ponytail and beard, to well shaven and haircut, and did the Brooke's Bros suit bit for some pretty smart white collar criminals.

"Hide In Plain Site"

Mad Ogre has a great ring as a name for a line of clothing...especially for us older returning to college bunch...coming to a campus near you...


Your 'signature design" feature could be that "narrow pocket' at 4 and 8 o'clock...just happpens to hold a mag or speedloader. Maybe built in belly bands on sweats...just a thought.

 

[iapetus]

If your wanting something for "being invisible" rather than simply not being noticed:

From my experience of driving at night and having people step out into the road in front of me without looking:

Pure black is not good - you can see a strong, dark silhouette.

On the other hand, I once narroly avoided a woman who was wearing some sort of checked pattern woolen jacket, with brown/black/khaki/beige grid lines, which was almost perfect "disruptive pattern camoflage" for night-time urban environment.


On the other hand, if you want something that will make people just ignore you, or see you but not pay any attention, I'm pretty sure a fluorescent yellow vest, or a clipboard will get you in anywhere

 

[George Hill]

Mad Ogre sweashirt
http://www.cafeshops.com/madogre.3433262
Can be used as a covering garment for any number of handguns from Bersa to Beretta... Hi-Point to High-Power.

 

[sm]

LOL

I didn't know...no green?

That is so

 

[Correia]

"For Urban Cammo - you don't blend in with the stucco and concrete - you blend in with all the other people." - George Hill

Great advice. For normal humans. For those of you who know me or have seen my picture, you know I'm screwed.

 

[Sleuth]

Correla, unless you have a third eye or an arm growing out of your back, you are overly sensative! When we taught surveillence, our students routinly failed to see the targets when they had pictures of them to refer to! Most of the time, they keyed in on a certain item of clothing. We had the targets go into a bathroom and change their jacket, let their hair down, and walk out within feet of the students, who never saw them.

If you are dressed like most of the people where you are, and act like most of them, you will go unnoticed.

Example: I work in an office with 9 people, have been here for 2 years. For 30 years, I had a full beard. Had it on Monday, came in Tuesday clean shaven. 3 people asked me if I had lost weight, 2 asked if something was different, 3 did not notice!

 

[Correia]

Slueth, how did you know about the extra eye?



Nah, I was exagerating because George is a friend of mine. It is kind of a running joke. He used to go by Kodiak on TFL when we first met. I'm a really really big dude, and we met I made him look tiny (and he is a good sized dude). He figured I was the one that should have went by Kodiak.

 

[George Hill]

I'm just an Ewok compaired to that Wookie.
He handles a full sized FAL like I handle a CAR-15.

But Slueth still has the point. If you are dressed like everyone else and act like everyone else... you will go buy mostly unnoticed.
The human eye keys on two things.... #1 is movement. So if you are moving with the croud, you will have the best chance of slipping past. #2 is pattern recognition. You know why it's so much easier to hunt cannibis cultivation from the air even though it grows wild? Because the cats growing it - even when they try to be random - always ends up putting it in some sort of pattern. Circles, stars, lines, squares... I've even seen spirals.
If you go to any college campus you can almost instantly pike up the dude wearing the Suit. Try to pick out the guy wearing jeans and a ball cap... You aint going to do it.

Around here its a mix of College and Cowboy depending on what side of town you are on... so that is the way I dress most of the time.

 

[Average Guy]

Great discussion. Reminds me of what the "consulting tracker" guy from The Hunted said about blending in to an urban environment (it's in the special features). One trick was to crouch some to lower your height, because someone may be looking for you at the height he/she expects.

As much as I love seeing the fully movie-tactical getups like those form-fitting black "combat catsuits" (Cruise in MI:2; Liu in Ballistic)--and don't pretend that you're not perfecting the SkunkSuit®, Skunky!--my concern has always been what happens if you get caught? I'd much rather look the part of a regular guy. (And isn't that the most tactical of all?)

"Honest, officer--I always wear this gear. I'm Mall Security."

 

[JShirley]

Well, I don't have to crouch to lower my silhouette...how does one get taller instantly? Wait...never mind.

Larry is at least as much bigger than George than George is to me!

Also thought Volk! would be a great clothing line...

John

 

[TechBrute]

Skunk, I dig the discussion going, but I don't get the direction of your original question. Are you asking about colors to blend in and be sneaky, or are you trying to dissappear in a crowd. Having seen your picture, unless you're wearing alot of black, I think you'd dissappear in most crowds in LA.

Seriously, though. My "urban camo" is some khaki or OD 5.11s, brown hiking boots, grey/od/brown shirt/sweater, brown boonie hat (looks like a fishing hat), and brown belt. I can fit in with all but the suit crowd, and the colors make for good sneaky-sneaky. The OD 5.11s are better for the sneaky-sneaky than the khaki, as the khaki is a lighter khaki.

 

[JShirley]

Bah. Your boonie would give you "first to shoot" status in my book!

(Unless you're a zonked-looking hippy type.)

 

[TechBrute]

Bah. Your boonie would give you "first to shoot" status in my book!

I always used to check out people wearing boonie hats, but I've recently moved near a university, and they seem to be fairly common. I'm not much of a hat person, but I carry a crushed up boonie hat in my truck for hat occasions.

 

[BerettaNut92]

Techbrute, original question was more for military type BDUs, i.e. what tones blend in most with urban environments. I don't really follow the stuff and on the news we see guys in the cities wearing their desert BDUs, and I thought the military was trying to test some gray with squares and crosses on it?

 

[Morgan]

Skunk, that sounds much like the old "dazzle" camoflage paint from WWI ships, like so:

But if it weren't an open battle situation you'd do best by wearing normal urban attire.

 

[longeyes]

Dress like a tradesman. Drive a white Astro van.

 

[aroshi]

I'm surprised that no-one has come up with this key phrase yet:

"When in Rome... do as the Roman's do."

My area is filled with college kids, business-dressed persons, rural, and even Amish people. It'd be tough to find something to fit into all of those situations. I prefer cargo pants (I love all the pocket space) anywhere from OD to dark gray, black leather belt, loose light-to-medium gray long sleeve shirt over an earth-tone (usually green) t-shirt, black Doc-Marten shoes or gray/tan sneakers, topped with a reversible, rain-resistant jacket (black reverses to light gray fleece). In a pinch I can easily lose one shirt and alter my coloration from dark to light, or from neutral to colored.

I do, though, need to figure out what to do with my nearly bald head. Any suggestions?

 

[Sleuth]

They are called "HATS", from the latin for head covering.

Just remember, in all projections of men from the future, they have no hair! So, you and I are leading edge, all those guys with "hair" are trailling edge.

 

[Cavtrooper]

Good sturdy chukka boots, jeans or twills, a tan, slate or grey shirt. A company called Duluth Trading(I think that's spelled right) makes a nifty "sport jacket" in a good heavy cotton with lot of pockets for all your urban survival goodies. Looks like it even hangs well for CW carry. Sort of a neutral brown.
I have a barn coat that I wear in cooler weather, it's by Carhartt and I could hide several weapons under it.
OK, may be not the Bren and the BAR, but at least an SMG and a sidearm.
Only downfall is that in some parts you'll look like a real hick wearing one...oh, thats right, I am a hick.
Oh well.

 

[Sleuth]

Cavtrooper, I can fit my 1928 Thompson (with the stock removed) and a stick mag under my barn coat. The drum is just too wide. Learned this trick from a Col., who used to do this in Korea during that "Police Action".

 

[bubbygator]

I just discovered the Duluth Presentation Jacket mentioned by Cavtrooper above. I did a search to find if anyone else had mentioned it here & found this thread; so I'll add my comments here.

This is an awesome jacket. I can put a small gun (Glock-26, Walther, Kahr, snubby revolver, etc.) in a lower outside pocket or an inner lower "cross-draw" pocket, or an inner higher "shoulder-draw" pocket - either leftie or rightie. And they all conceal well & hang nicely. My snubby gave a very small point bulge at the muzzle, but a thin fabric pocket holster cured that. The autos just disappear. My large auto's are at the gunsmith, but I bet I can hide them too.

The thing is, I was just looking for a nice informal cotton jacket; that it's a carry jacket too is real icing on the cake.

Here's the site. I ordered online & got USPS deliver in about 3 days. I ordered Navy, but now that I've tried it, I also ordered the Khaki.

 

[Mulliga]

Techbrute, original question was more for military type BDUs, i.e. what tones blend in most with urban environments. I don't really follow the stuff and on the news we see guys in the cities wearing their desert BDUs, and I thought the military was trying to test some gray with squares and crosses on it?

What do the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan wear? What should they wear? Complicated questions. I'm no soldier, but here are some thoughts...

If you are doing patrol in the day, there isn't much that will conceal you from a foreign (and sometimes hostile) populace, so you might as well wear a regular desert uniform and try to stay professional IMHO. Keep the peace, don't get in anyone's way, and watch your back.

If you are smoking out some resistance fighters in the dead of night, flat black is probably the best thing going. From what I know about world energy policy, the U.S. is the most brightly lit nation on the face of the Earth - other places in the (third) world, the night is actually really dark. I actually wouldn't like flat black if operating in ubiquitous American street lights, but it's fine for cities where lighting isn't the best.