Way back in 2000 the Army and Marine Corps knew that the troops preferred commercial products. In this study conducted in 1997 they went so far as to develop a ‘Government Brand.’ Many items used by both the Army and SOCOM are commercial items but we are seeing the Marine Corps revert back to Government owned designs built by the lowest bidder. Take a look at this report. It’s an interesting read.
Brand New – An Exploratory Study Into the Role of Branding on Military Clothing Acceptability
“Brand New”? The study is coming on FIFTEEN years old?
Yeah and was named “Brand New” fifteen years ago. They can’t just change the name of the report because it’s no longer accurate due to dating.
‘Brand New’ is part of the title. It’s a play on words.
Could not access the link. Interesting that garment branding is still an issue. Back in the day, yes, clothing items were simply produced by the low bidder and were not very good. However, poor design using substandard materials were probably a bigger issue than who made the product. It made sense to want to wear commercial garments, which were far superior.
However, things have evolved. We first entered the knockoff phase, where we imitated commercial products and cloned them using a low cost manufacturer (e.g. SPEAR). Then next level used high end commercial vendors and contractors (climber Mark Twight) to help design the garments (PCU, DCU, MARS, PCU Level 9, etc.) using state of the art fabrics. Many of these garment features were adopted by the Army in GEN II ECWCS.
Given the Berry Amendment and the smalll pool of domestic garment manufacturers, todays garments are still made by the same folks but have significantly increased capabilities. Please know that even if your garment doesn’t have the “gucci” label, it is the result of an evolutionary process that has greatly improved most military garments. And remember, those gucci garments are made in a sweat shop in El Salvador or the Far East. Our quality is comparable although our costs are higher.