The Language of Clothing

[Janner52]

Richard, I cannot disagree with you.
There are many variations of the colour khaki as used by the British army. I understand it was initially used by the army in India and found to be suitable as a general camouflage colour. I would guess that a darker version was found more suitable for the European environment of WW1. OR’s uniforms were factory produced and, as you mentioned, came from many different production lines which would result in slight colour and design variations. This despite the War Office retaining a “Sealed Pattern” for all items of uniform and equipment. Officer’s uniforms were tailor made by regimentally appointed tailors and over time some regiments had different versions of khaki approved for their officers’ uniforms. This continued until around 10 years ago, when uniforms for all ranks became an issue item, in a standard, and slightly different version of khaki.
Even in the 1960s when we were issued two sets of khaki No 2 dress you couldn’t mix the jackets and trousers as the tiny colour difference would be obvious.
As regards the stone shirts, I seem to recall that they were supplied to the Royal Marines for wear with their Lovat Green uniforms. They were also supplied to the army for wear in warm weather climates. The original ones had a slight grey appearance as per the photo. The khaki No 2 shirts issued to the army were more like the later stone shirts.
Khaki has always been a generic term, within the British Army, to describe the many shades of “khaki” used to make up our khaki uniform.
This still doesn’t explain the current use of the word khaki, by outdoor clothing retailers, to describe olive green, which was the colour of the woollen jerseys issued to us since the 1970s.

[Jock Scot]

The mistake that you are making OCR, is that you are trying to be far too precise with MOD colours. It just didn't happen that way.Its not really surprising when millions of men and women from all over the Empire and elsewhere were involved. Often sourcing their uniform cloth from more local manufacturers. So there was never any likelihood of colour uniformity. A Sergeant Major's night mare for sure, but it was inevitable when the numbers of men and women and the thousands of miles between suppliers were considered.

[OC Richard]

The mistake that you are making OCR, is that you are trying to be far too precise with MOD colours. It just didn't happen that way.Its not really surprising when millions of men and women from all over the Empire and elsewhere were involved. Often sourcing their uniform cloth from more local manufacturers. So there was never any likelihood of colour uniformity. A Sergeant Major's night mare for sure, but it was inevitable when the numbers of men and women and the thousands of miles between suppliers were considered.

Right, and I specifically mention that both in the USA and Britain the shade varied from contractor to contractor.

It's well known, for example, that Canadian Battle Dress tended to be a greener shade than British.

Just within the British army in WWII

Although covered by specification, the cloth used for British army battle dress varied considerably both in weight and colour, depending on batch from mill production. A rank of soldiers on parade was rarely completely uniform, and the variations extended to a single squaddie's blouse and trousers.

Yet, if you see a group of WWI British officers their tunics, though no two will be identical, will be within a certain range of "khaki" and their shirts, though no two will be identical, will be within a certain second range of "khaki".

In other words, as I had mentioned, colours exist in a continuum and each country, language, dialect, or in this case military fashion, draws the lines (arbitrary though they may be) at different places.

So you wouldn't see an officer's tunic in shirt khaki and shirt in tunic khaki- there was agreement that the shirt should be a lighter shade than the tunic. With the neckies, they seemed to often be a distinct third shade of khaki.

[Jock Scot]

OCR. With the greatest of respect.

As wee lad during WW2 I recall, very clearly, that there were far more important things going on, than bothering about assorted colour shades of uniforms and those assorted shades of uniform were seen for many years after peace was declared.

[OC Richard]

there were far more important things going on, than bothering about assorted colour shades of uniforms...

Certainly! I never said that uniform colours were more important that fighting a World War.

However the topic of this thread is clothing colours.

Obviously compared to geopolitics, the state of the environment, and many other topics the whole idea of a kilt chat forum is trivial. Yet here we are!

[Jock Scot]

Certainly! I never said that uniform colours were more important that fighting a World War.

However the topic of this thread is clothing colours.

Obviously compared to geopolitics, the state of the environment, and many other topics the whole idea of a kilt chat forum is trivial. Yet here we are!

A Trivial colour discussion and tiresome most certainly. I am afraid that apart from that we shall have to agree to differ.