No bared belly buttons. That was one of the rules our crew had to agree to before principal Milton Shishido and Col. Jeff Tom could allow us to borrow McKinley High School's baseball field for a fashion shoot.
A new emphasis on military styles
and khaki colors manages to be both
streetwise and feminineUniformity is a serious matter
By Nadine Kam
nkam@starbulletin.com"You're talking spring fashion, right?" asked Tom, who heads McKinley's junior ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) program. Apparently he knows, thanks to having spent seven years working with students, that spring is generally about minimalism: gauzy fabrics, bare shoulders, bare midriffs.
Until this year.
The adults needn't have worried, because among spring's trends is a salute to the military, with attention-getting designs that are classic and crisp.
To traditionalists, the look is downright respectable. To the fashion crowd, the look is edgy, tough and streetwise. A woman wearing a Harley-Davidson powder blue, tan-and-sand camouflage T-shirt and skort set with a fitted black leather jacket doesn't even need to arch an eyebrow to say, "Don't mess with me, Jack."At Celine, the mix of military and safari looks -- with an earthy palette of khaki, cocoa, sienna, mustard and olive drab -- is dubbed "Sexy Surplus."
Designer Michael Kors describes the line as a sophisticated mix of "butch and femme," according to Dale Ruff, managing director for Celine Hawaii.
The garments are, Ruff says, "masculine, with the military look, yet feminine, with luxury fabrics.
"Kors' look in the past has always been minimalistic. Even with the military look, his line still has the Celine silhouette. The attention is on the details, the hardware," Ruff said.
Belts are fashioned from brass and leather to look like bandoliers. These cartridge belts are slung low across the hips for a look that reads sexy and dangerous. Other details include metal grommets and epaulets."It appeals to younger woman, yet wouldn't alienate a traditional Celine customer, who is 30 to 40 years old, because it's still very elegant," Ruff said.
At Crazy Shirts, creative director Bob Tanaka said camouflage has been updated with vibrant colors such as orange and purple, and new patterns that go beyond the splotchy pattern of army BDUs (battle dress uniforms).
Crazy Shirts pairs blue-and-white ocean pattern "camouflage" shorts with a white T-shirt bearing the image of a shark, dubbed "Sharka."
Sitting on Tanaka's desk are military-style dog tags he picked up on a recent fashion reconnaissance mission to the West Coast. The dog tags, badges and patches are accessories sure to find their way into teen outlets over the next two to six months.If it seems like camouflage has always been around, well, Hawaii is ahead of the fashion pack due to the presence of military bases and surplus stores, not to mention all those hunters running around the mountains chasing after wild pigs. These guys have always been more practical than fashionable, but their get-ups synch naturally with the utilitarian trend among youth.
"Cargo pants came out of military-style pants," said Tanaka. "A lot of it has to do with wanting a lot of pockets for gadgets.
"Uniforms, in general, are big, and that's not necessarily due to military influence. Thrift stores sell recycled uniforms of firemen and police officers. You can go in and buy an old Boy Scout uniform.
"The people who are into that want something that sets them apart, and a girl walking down the street in a Cub Scout uniform, now that's different."
Uniformity is The U.S. Army is making fashion news of its own, having announced plans to make the black beret uniform for all its 474,000 soldiers.
a serious matter
Within the military, dressing
By Nadine Kam
right is not fashion frivolity
Star-BulletinThe order by Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army's chief of staff, drew protesters Saturday to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Army Rangers, whose elite units already wear the berets, complained that the move would detract from the black beret as a symbol of distinction. They are contemplating a switch to an olive-drab beret.
"I can understand how they feel," said McKinley's ROTC drill team commander McHuy McCoy, a junior. "The real military guys earn what they wear."
"You have to join the team," said drill team member Albert Valdez, a senior.
"I always say we cry together and bleed together. Just to get this hat," McCoy says, pointing to his black beret, "we had to do so much."
Trish Alota, a McKinley senior and the only girl on the team, broke her finger during a rifle drill. The boys have all conked themselves on the head dozens of times while practicing with the 10-pound rifles.
Chalk it up to youth, but the cadets said they don't mind seeing other students appropriate military style, considering the attention to be a form of flattery.
"It's cool, it's fashion," said McCoy. "But our instructor thinks only people in the military should wear these clothes.
"If we wear a military look in school that's not a uniform, he makes us take it off," said Valdez. "That's why I have a camouflage hat but I can't wear it in school."
As for the Army's plan, Shinseki plans to introduce the berets June 14, the Army's birthday.
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