Do you wear pieces of your collections?

After a quite time of thinking.... I decided to give it a rant....

The real reason I don't wear military stuff anymore.... It made me feel like a wannabe. Every time I go to a gun or militaria show, I'd see a bearded person with a bonnie hat over ponytail wearing DCU jacket with multiple random pins such as POW-MIA, US flags, and DUIs from many different divisions. Sometimes I'd see a guy wearing a jacket with non-sense placements of patches. According to many collectors I've talked to , those are classic poser outfits, also I personally noticed many of them are like that. Don't get me wrong, some of them may be actual a vet but many veterans I know are being humble and don't show off. It made me realize that I don't want to be like them, I want to respect military people. So I stopped wearing military stuff. Surely I like to wear camo shorts but those are civilian brands from Trans-nine or American Eagle that are no way resemble real stuff, however, I still don't wear them when I go to gun or military show because I don't want other people to think: "Oh no, not another jackass."

I don't do reenactment because it seems like many veterans find them to be obnoxious. I talked to one USMC veteran. He told me he got into argument with a re-enactor who thought he know everything when he got most of things wrong, at the end, he insulted veteran. I thought re-enactors are into it to honor veterans but some of them just wanted to play a "war" which bothered some veterans who have seen horrors. I did thought about joining a German reenactment group but decided not because I can't imagine myself dressing and pretending to be something I'm not. Don't get me wrong, reenactments seem to be cool and fun. I understand their purpose but it is not just for me.

This "rule" of mine doesn't apply to girls because they are sexy in uniforms and can easily get me aroused.

I apologize if I was being offensive but I just lay it out what I think.

Cheers.

I only wear one or two pieces every now and then, as I said earlier, and they are completely unpatched (I got them that way...I could never dream of stripping patches, plus I know Jeremy & Arch would kill me)
In wearing patchless items, it avoids any appearance of posing. But as you said, I don't even think of wearing ANYTHING military-ish to gun & militaria shows for the exact same reasons you stated.

There's a couple of posers at my college, mostly mid-to-late 30's dudes who wear military stuff with rank, patches, etc., and talk about their "days in service", but when asked about trivial, non-invasive details that nearly every veteran would usually talk about openly (MOS, unit affiliation, etc.) they become vague or start talking out their butt.

Like the guy who said he was Army infantry, but when asked by a legit ex-Army infantryman what his specific MOS was (11B, 11C, etc.) he just kept saying "Oh just infantry." Guy tore him a new butthole.

It's quite frustrating to see people lying about service they didn't commit to.



Sorry for derailing the thread.

sometimes I wear my Vietnam jungle boots, they are post VN dated so I dont mind wearing them since they not rare

I also wear a VN M65 field jacket [no insignia]

This is what i wear on a regular basis, depending on the season and weather.

French Guerrilla Smock


Canadian winter jacket


Norway M75 Jacket


Slovakia Desert


Danish desert pants


Finnish M05 desert


Danish M84 jacket


US T-Mout shirt


South West Africa KOEVET jacket


Transkei 1st pattern jacket


Irish Smock (great for new york weather in the winter)


South Africa 32btn jacket


Also a commercial ARTIKIS swedish jacket.

Whenever they fit me and i like the pattern i'll wear it to work, to go out, everything i'm always wearing cammo

cheers

I decided that for exams this week, I'm going to wear a jacket of a different pattern each day... just for fun.
Last week, I wore my Swedish M90 jacket and my geology professor commented that even though she "couldn't see me", she knew I had been in class and had done all the work in preparation for the final exam.

When I first receive an item I try it on to see how it fits. After that it goes in
the closet as I don't want to add to the wear that it already has.

I wear Finnish M62 in the winter and Portuguese short-sleeve lizard for the summer.

No patches or insignia of course.

Mercenary25 wrote:After a quite time of thinking.... I decided to give it a rant....

The real reason I don't wear military stuff anymore.... It made me feel like a wannabe. Every time I go to a gun or militaria show, I'd see a bearded person with a bonnie hat over ponytail wearing DCU jacket with multiple random pins such as POW-MIA, US flags, and DUIs from many different divisions. Sometimes I'd see a guy wearing a jacket with non-sense placements of patches. According to many collectors I've talked to , those are classic poser outfits, also I personally noticed many of them are like that. Don't get me wrong, some of them may be actual a vet but many veterans I know are being humble and don't show off. It made me realize that I don't want to be like them, I want to respect military people. So I stopped wearing military stuff. Surely I like to wear camo shorts but those are civilian brands from Trans-nine or American Eagle that are no way resemble real stuff, however, I still don't wear them when I go to gun or military show because I don't want other people to think: "Oh no, not another jackass."

I apologize if I was being offensive but I just lay it out what I think.

Cheers.

I whole heartedly agree, admittedly i will wear my British DDPM shorts and sandals when the weather calls for it, but I too can't stand when I see young skateboarders etc wearing military issue clothing, here in England builders and work men are frequent offenders of wearing combat trousers to work and they just get all torn and look so ragged with the pockets open and tassles flailing about everywhere etcetera, apologies if im seen to rant, but I have the official privilege of wearing Her Majesty's uniform and I dont take it lightly. Rant over

I certainly do,not the rare stuff of course.

This hobby is expensive enough so my philosophy is that if i can get some use of the stuff as well then a double bonus and also i find most people have only favourable comments regarding the stuff.

I would say there isnt a day when i dont wear some item of military issued kit.

I don't wear my stuff that often simply because I don't really have any cause to. I sometimes wear my Greek lizard pattern pants in lieu of jeans, that's about it. On the rare occasions I wear my full kit people assume I've come back from hunting or have gone out hunting, I've actually had my friends who hunt compliment my kit and ask where they can get some.

Beyond that, some of my friends wear M81 jackets for the bit of cold weather we've had lately, mostly their fathers' old kit. When I get an Irish DPM jacket/smock it will probably end up serving a similar purpose.

Freezing cold weather has started here so depending on my mood i wear(amongst others)N3-B Parka,US M65 or M51 with liner,repro German WW2 reversible parka(either Splinter or Sumpf).

All of the above look pretty dammn good with a pair of jeans and of course get used for their original purpose.

Hi

I always try to get all my pieces for my size exactly to be able to wear them. Mostly trousers on weekends or casual time and complete gear on airsoft games like the examples below

Issued Flecktarn shirt, trousers and bulletproof vest. Commercial short brim boonie	Mozambique short sleeve shirt and trousers.	Portuguese unissued lizzard with issued cap, belt, suspenders, canteen, mag-pouches, small backpack and steel helmet as used in the 80's

Best regards

.

Two members of the IACMC taking part in a re-enactment event. The vehicles are ACMATS, rarely seen outside of the French Foreign Legion, the MGs are GPMGs from the UK(de-activated) and the uniforms are from the Italian Army in IFOR, badged as Col Moschine.

Any particular reason for the British Bergen on the right?

They are cheap and they dress up the vehicles well.If you saw the other vehicles, you would see many more of them! There are 2 more on the left side of this particular ACMAT

haha fair enough, i think ive just spotted another one on the left as well

This was a very broad ranging event as you can see from some of the participants:

Yes I wear.

https://iacmc.forumotion.com/t5411-british-troops-in-afghanistan

Because I'm a reenactor.

And often I wear boots, trousers, smocks, GTX or rucksacks (daysack, patrolpack, bergan)depending on circumstances - british stuff are most comfortable and practical to used.

I try wear for fitting every piece i buy.
I always wear a Us bdu desert storm (chocolatechip)shirt(no patches) to Rock/pop Concerts (easy to park yr beercan with al the pockets!) or camping outdoors events,and i use Dutch armyBoots. At home i wear Us bdu.dcu pants and shorts.
And Desert storm style Booniehats at the beach!

I stupidly loose out on some gems as i insist on buying stuff in my size most of the time

I always wear Rare jackets out, why not you own them ,and its fun .

I have a pair of CCU pants I wear a lot , and I will wear jackets in the winter , DDR flachentarn and Russian VSR winter coats , and I wear a lot of Vietnam patterned commercial jackets in Tiger and Early ERDL.

as far as cams go, i wear a dpm windproof smock when it gets cold; and desert dpm shorts in summer/winter (not a fan of long pants); some assortment of dpm shirts when the aussie sun is too much even for the toughest of people...never wear them as a whole set, don't wanna look silly in a mall or among mates

plenty of age old RAAF/RAN/ Australian Army work shorts in my wardrobe, if that counts

Here is me wearing a 47-51 French camouflage jacket down the pub.

It was cold enough to wear a mint condition German winter parka.
Complete with the hard to find armband.
This came from a rag mill for $12 .

If you own stuff you might as well enjoy it .