Strange overdyed UCP jacket

I've had this weird jacket since 2012 and I don't think I've ever got an explanation of it...





What we have here is obviously overdyed UCP cloth, but it was dyed BEFORE it was manufactured and it was made with components not found on standard UPC jackets.

It was made under a 2005 contract. The most obvious evidence this is special is the green velcro (including the plastic "hook" side) instead of gray. You can't dye plastic, so for sure this was made with non-standard components. The other thing is the tags do not look dyed. Sometimes that can be tricky to see, but they do appear in their original colors. Which makes sense since the velcro clearly indicates this is deliberate, so why dye the cloth after the garment is made? I suppose the cloth could have been printed in green tones, but I doubt that. Much cheaper to take a production cloth and dye it.

Does anybody know anything about this? I bought it off eBay from a seller who was puzzled by the features, but otherwise didn't have anything interesting to say about it.

Steve

I went back and found your original post from 2012, you've been searching for the answer for quite awhile!
Unfortunately I can't speak for the purpose colored velcro, but I do have these pics of some dyed ACU pieces that were temporarily posted on a chat back in 2019 from a veteran who mentioned he brought them home after serving as an OPFOR member.
He said for the made-up foreign OPFOR uniforms they dyed UCP ACU's green and blue for army and police forces, respectively, and had two of each example:





My best guess is that coat was dyed for OPFOR purposes. For the velcro I can only speculate that it's either a coincidental color variation from that maker (I have a 2003 UCP ACU coat that has an unusual rounded mandarin collar tab compared to the square ones most others have) or perhaps maybe even it was dyed and changed from the factory as a potential dedicated OPFOR uniform or a trial to explore tweaking UCP's colors.
Hopefully someone else comes along with a better answer, but I hope these pics will at least be informative to someone!
-Nate

Overdying was not uncommon in Afghanistan in particular.  There's plenty of pictures of British with desert DPM overdyed.  I even have a piece lying around.  Airsoft guys also might do something like this because UCP is cheap (though not quite as cheap in 2012 when I got this!).  I rejected those possibilities because this jacket doesn't look like original UCP that was overdyed.  Usually you can see signs of it on the tags and the soft side of velcro.  Anything plastic should be in the same color as the standard pieces, also the thread sometimes doesn't take the dye very well.

I REALLY do not want to think this is an experimental factory made item, but... it was made in 2005 and that was the first year of production for UCP.  That is suspicious!  I have not heard of any OPFOR or experimental color variations that early on.  UCP-D was done in 2008.  It would also be a very strange coincidence for someone to overdye a first year production jacket that also oddly had green plastic velcro and labels that didn't take any dye.

Thanks for your thoughts!  Looks like my 11 year quest to find an answer continues

Steve

Great info! Thanks!

Yes, I've seen labels with only sight signs of taking dye, others that soak it up like a sponge. Same with the soft velcro. Though the few examples I've seen tend to show signs. I'll look at my labels again very carefully and see if I can spot anything unusual about them.

Good point about the variability of the color of the plastic bits. Would be rather good luck to have overdyed one with green plastic as by 2005 it seems gray was standard.

The dates... those are interesting labels that show 2003 and 2004 dates because UCP didn't exist then. The CCU experiment was in 2003 and the CU experiment in 2004, both being the basis for ACU, which of course is what all UCP uniforms used.

The camo trials were conducted during 2004 and conclusions were only tabulated late in that year (I have a presentation dated November).

My guess is those early contract dates were manufactures already contracted with to produce BDU/DCU uniforms and their contracts were modified to accommodate ACU instead of cancelled. There would likely have been a big financial penalty for cancelling and rebidding very problematic, so modification would bet the logical bureaucratic solution.

Steve