The Language of Clothing

[MacKenzie]

As a person from across the pond, and someone who has worn khaki (sand coloured) and olive green clothing for about 35 years I have never heard olive green referred to as khaki except in the last few years when retailers have advertised it as such. Olive green has always been referred to as such or as OG or olive drab. So I am not sure where this came from.

I hadn't thought about it for many years until this thread. I read, studied, absorbed everything WWII during my younger years, and I have it burned into my brain that, "The Brits call OD green khaki."

So file it as "anecdotal".

[Janner52]

I hadn't thought about it for many years until this thread. I read, studied, absorbed everything WWII during my younger years, and I have it burned into my brain that, "The Brits call OD green khaki."

So file it as "anecdotal".

Fair comment.

The British Army wore khaki on active service from 1902 until 1943 so I have found out. Jungle Green was then introduced, in the Far East, as khaki wasn’t suitable for the jungle environment. Presumably between the end of the war and sometime during thaw Malayan Emergency (48-61) this morphed into OG. It’s quite possible that everything was generically referred to as khaki in the early stages , especially by those outside the military. Of course it’s also quite possible that we were referring to the G.I.s wartime combat clothing as a general colour for soldiers uniforms.

[OC Richard]

Possibly my first introduction to the differences between the way we here in the US and people in England name colours was back in the early 1970s when I was watching this Monty Python sketch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riHEQ6pcxro

They're shooting a low-budget film on a beach. It's supposed to take place in the Antarctic so they've painted the sand white.

But then they decide to switch the scene's location from the Antartic to the Sahara.

"Paint the sand yellow again!" (4:02)

I had never imagined that anyone could call the colour of sand "yellow".

Around that time I got interested in Scottish military history and became familiar with the "Khaki Wool Serge" Service Dress which was introduced in 1902, in which World War One was fought.

I had never imagined that anyone could call the colour that the US Army called Olive Drab "Khaki". ("Olive Drab" was the name of the colour of the US Army wool Service Dress uniform, likewise adopted in 1902, in which we fought World War One.)

But I'd acquired 20 or 30 books about the British army, all of them written by British authors and all of them published in Britain (presumably for a British audience, they being difficult to acquire here) and they consistently used the word "Khaki" to refer to that dull slightly greenish mid-brown that we call Olive Drab.

But these books also used the word "Khaki" to refer to the colour we in the US call "Khaki", a very pale tan, or beige. The British called the cloth itself "Khaki Drill" or KD for short.

When the British Army first adopted the Officers' Khaki Wool Service Dress tunic with open collar and lapels it was worn with white shirt and black tie. But in 1913 this was changed to "Khaki shirt" and "Khaki tie".



Hold on! The tunic, shirt, and tie were three different colours! But all were called "Khaki" in the regulations.

I learned that the term "Khaki" in British military parlance (at least concerning The Great War) was far more elastic than the word "Khaki" was in the US.



I need to point out, first, that the US 1902 Service Dress was acknowledged at the time to be a copy both in style and colour of the British 1902 Service Dress (though we can see that it wasn't a very close copy).

And second, in both countries the colour varied widely, every contractor seemingly having a different shade, from a dull mid-brown without trace of green to browns with varying tinges of green.

I just now found out, through Googling, that from 1941 to 1947 the MOD used the term "Service Drab" for one specific shade of the colour that they'd been calling "Khaki" since 1902. Nevertheless, Battle Dress is pretty much universally described as "Khaki" in the British sources.

About the shirts, I found it interesting that the MOD uses the term "Stone" for the shirt-colour we in the US call "Khaki".

When I got into wearing British-made tweed jackets I quickly learned of another difference in colour terminology.

There's a colour midway between grey and brown which Americans would often call "gray" before the term "Taupe" became common. What we wouldn't call this colour is "brown". But I found that British catalogues and websites generally did call this colour "brown".

They'll also use "brown" for a colour we'd call "tan" https://www.dobell.com/harris-tweed-...eed-jacket-usa

For us "brown" has a more restricted meaning, which I've seen British sources call "Walnut".

Even this "Walnut" tweed, in some of the photos, looks a bit too tan to be called "Brown" by many Americans https://www.cathcartlondon.com/en-us...d-gable-jacket

To find colours which, if you said to somebody around here, "I mean the guy in the brown jacket" everyone would know who you meant, I found I have to search using "chocolate".

The truth is that colours exist in a continuum and each language, each dialect, draws the borders of each of their various colour-words in different places.

(Famously many languages don't have either a word for, or the concept of, the colour we call "blue".) https://gondwana-collection.com/blog...bas-see-colour

[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.

[Pleater]

When I started making kilts I used pretty much any fabric I had that was not too skimpit, and then wore the result out in sun, sand, wind and rain, a couple of snowstorms and a dunking or two in the sea.

It was not long before the effects of such treatment began to impact on the dyes - things with blue being particularly prone to fading. After encounters with the local heathland vegetation on top of that, several kilts have been stripped for parts and discarded or dyed darker, or even recycled as lining material.

Anne the Pleater

[Mike Horah]

As someone who has studied military uniforms extensively as part of my hobby of wargaming with miniatures the precise colours attributed to particular uniforms at particular times in history can be hard to pin down even if you view them in museums.

It depends partly on how well the dyes could be fixed in the period in question and as importantly the environmental impact on them in service on campaign.

An example is the classic Napoleonic army blue which could be almost a dark purple in production but which would fade with rain sun etc so that in a body of soldiers supposedly wearing the same uniform some might well find their shades look substantially different to others. Indeed the assumption was that materials would fade to the proper colour at some point!

In the modern era that may be less problematic but simply because a thing is defined in a regulation or contract spec as a particular colour does not necessarily tell you the exact shade. And it depends how much effort is put into quality control. I have no doubt the British Guards regiments have had a great deal of effort made in ensuring the exact right shade of scarlet! But then they don't tend to get much environmental damage!

I have tremendous problems discerning khaki from faded khaki from olive green from drab in the acrylic paints that I use. So I can entirely sympathise with anyone trying to match colours on actual materials. Much easier if you're using mass produced contemporary officially produced items obviously. But even then batches may differ. I would not be surprised if even the finest plaids produced 50 60 or 70 years ago have partially faded or not quite so well survived regular out of doors use.

[Jock Scot]

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------- But even then batches may differ. I would not be surprised if even the finest plaids produced 50 60 or 70 years ago have partially faded or not quite so well survived regular out of doors use.

Indeed they do.The tartan of the Atholl Highlanders are a prime example of this. I seem to recall that the last time I saw them parade, there were at least four very different shades of their tartan to be seen being very proudly worn by all ranks.