Berlin Brigade Balaclava

In 1982, Major Clendon Daukes of the 4/7 Royal Dragoon Guards developed a new camouflage scheme for British armoured vehicles in West Berlin — working from cardboard cutouts placed against his office window at Smuts Barracks, observing how traditional organic camouflage read against the hard horizontal and vertical geometry of the city. The result was the Urban Paint Scheme: rectangular blocks of white, grey-blue, and brick brown, every edge straight, every angle ninety degrees, sized at a standard 18 inches regardless of vehicle type. Applied identically across every vehicle of the same type to defeat Soviet crateology — the practice of identifying units by unique markings or paint variations. Adopted across the Brigade from 1983, it remained in use until the Brigade was disbanded in 1994 following German reunification. In 2017, the Royal Tank Regiment repainted Challenger 2s in the scheme for urban combat trials and found the geometric silhouette break-up still confounded modern sensors.

Read the full history →

On Scale & Translation

A single camouflage block on a Chieftain tank is measured in feet, not inches — conceived for a surface area orders of magnitude larger than a jacket or a hat. Adapting it for garments meant confronting the same problem military tailors have always faced: a pattern conceived at that scale reads as noise, or disappears entirely, when miniaturised directly onto cloth. What you’re wearing isn’t a reduced copy. It’s a translation — the same way a map is a translation of terrain. The geometry is faithful. The palette is accurate. The scale is human.

A stretch microfiber balaclava — 130g/m², 95% polyester / 5% spandex, four-way stretch. Covers head, face, and neck in one piece without bunching or slipping. Slim enough to wear under a helmet, cap, or hood. Open-face design keeps your field of vision clear.

• 95% polyester / 5% spandex microfiber, 130g/m²
• 4” × 20.8” (H×W), one size fits most
• Helmet-compatible, stretch fit, open-face design
• Care: machine wash cold, tumble dry low, do not bleach, do not iron or dry clean

Each piece is printed and made to order — please allow additional production time before shipment. Colours may vary slightly between screen and finished garment due to the nature of print-on-demand production.

EU representative: Europe Gateway International B.V., info@euegi.nl, Kraijenhoffstraat 137 A, Amsterdam, 1018RG, the Netherlands