Discussing their style while in All Saints, Nicole and Natalie Appleton said earlier this year that some things don’t change: “Army trousers and combat trousers will always be a staple with us.”
If, for a long time after All Saints’ noughties heyday, the sisters would have known this look was not the height of fashion, things have changed in ۲۰۲۶. Judging by those attending shows at London fashion week this month, camo is very much back.
Worn with heels, beaded flats, camisoles and shirting, camo trousers became a standout front-row trend, one that had first been spotted at Copenhagen fashion week in August. Vogue described it as “a clear winner among the trends we spotted outside the shows”. Fashion editors aren’t alone either: celebrities including Alexa Chung and Iris Law have worn camo recently. And Brad Pitt, promoting his new survival movie Heart of the Beast, looked the part wearing camo trousers and matching jacket this month.
Hetty Mahlich, a brand editor at Burberry, was photographed wearing her army surplus camo pants at fashion week. She likes the way they can give a sense of contrast to an outfit: “They go with a vintage nightdress or a white baby tee, but they’re also great with a heel as I never like feeling too dressed up.”
Camo is becoming more popular beyond those in the front row. Searches have increased ۱۰۸% on the resale app Depop since April and brands ranging from Zara to Marks & Spencer and Adidas are selling it on the high street. Maharishi, the label that dressed All Saints in their camo pants, has enjoyed a revival: it collaborated with Arsenal in ۲۰۲۳ on a popular camo-tinged collection.
Most of the wearers of camo now are looking to the last moment it was fashionable – with bands such as All Saints and Destiny’s Child in the early noughties. A Grazia article post-Copenhagen described camo as “a trend I’ve buried in the place in my mind where Facebook photo albums and concealer lips live”. However, with a generation born at this time now coming of age, the era is being looked at with nostalgia.
This was when camo went mass market, said Andrew Groves, a professor of fashion design at the University of Westminster. “By the noughties, camouflage had become completely normalised,” he said. “You could wear camo trousers without consciously making a military statement. It had become comparable to tartan or leopard print.”
Of course, the history of camo – or camouflage – begins with the military. It was first used extensively in the first world war. By the time of the Vietnam war in the ۱۹۶۰s, camo was also being worn as a statement – by those in the US opposed to the war. In the ۸۰s, the pattern moved across to high fashion – after Andy Warhol’s camouflage paintings were used in a collection by Stephen Sprouse in ۱۹۸۷. “By then it wasn’t simply military clothing any more,” said Groves.
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Fast forward nearly ۴۰ years and the trend for camo comes with a backdrop of wars around the world. Groves said even with the now-established place in fashion, the military connections remained – but this might be part of the appeal: “It carries associations with warfare but also protest and counterculture. That ambiguity is perhaps why fashion keeps returning to it.”
For Mahlich, the wearers of camo since the ۶۰s mean the military element fades into the background. “I think of it more as a universal pattern,” she said. “Military uniforms have been co-opted by subcultures and on the runway for so long that now they have new meanings and associations.”
