Bill's bag in disposition's photo in the book tour photos thread is by ACRONYM. I didn't notice it in the UK, but the jacket he was wearing in the evening was ACRONYM.

The Acronym stuff is really nice gear. I have to say I was coveting the jacket Bill wore on the UK Zero History tour.

Meanwhile, might I bring Sir's attention to the availability of Blast Boxers?

best
Chris (Kevlar underpants) H

I've actually handled and tried a couple of Acronym garments on. I'm not at all fond of the styling and colors, but the ingenuity, attention to detail, and sheer practicality of the stuff is really first-rate. It has 'design totem' qualities, if that makes sense.

Just wish they made their line in tropical fish colors, and that the garment sizing wasn't so wonky.

speaking of brands with design totem qualities

TRIPLE AUGHT DESIGN

so much more lustworthy than 5.11 or maxpedition. Chris Costas wears it, a gearqueer icon. (ggl costas magpul)

lots of knockoffs in the Taipei night markets. I have a knockoff rangerhoodie. can't justify 300dollar hoodie.

quote:

Originally posted by Roob:
speaking of brands with design totem qualities

TRIPLE AUGHT DESIGN

so much more lustworthy than 5.11 or maxpedition. Chris Costas wears it, a gearqueer icon. (ggl costas magpul)

lots of knockoffs in the Taipei night markets. I have a knockoff rangerhoodie. can't justify 300dollar hoodie.

Ha! You speak more truth than you know....

Personally wouldn't be caught dead in TADgear...

Huh. I see their site got rid of all the "porn rectangles" ...

I like their hoodies and shells, but they really aren't anything you cant get from many other companies for much cheaper.

your dollar at TAD goes towards a huge marketing and sponsorship budget as well as great materials and halfway decent manufacture.

it is the kind of purchase that will get you spotted as a special kind of special though - the kind of person who would pay 300 to be in the 300$ hoodie club... hmm

Condor Outdoor has a new line o fleece and hardshells that are on par with TAD design and construction wise.. maybe not as great materials but for 1/5 the price. find it on uscav.com and other mil/civ sites.

Everyone above the tropic of cancer needs a black fleece of some sort. everyone.

me taking photos of a particular counterfeit fetishized tactical pant:



work room/office with rubbermaid furniture, memory foam seating, taiwanese electric radiator.

'93 vintage Structure work jacket I have had since... 1993(go figure) over an American apparel grey hooded sweatshirt and grey unlabeled tshirt. Jeans are very old Levi's grey denim and too new to be comfortable 1490 Dr martens. This is my basic daily invisible street guy wear, I hope the boots wear in quickly as they squeek.

Pants on foam slab are a Taiwan counterfeit TADgear Force10 Cargo pant in ME brown (khaki) cotton/nylon ripstop. This particular copy is very good, pretty much only available in the night market in Taipei, but I have seen some rebrands on retail sites I suspect are the same pant or from the same workshop, labels changed though.

I asked Bill some time ago about the sneakers he wore on the ZH tour and have both forgotten and been unable to find his response on Twitter. Can anyone tell me, please?

The Tad fleece are the warmest I have ever owned. I just took a twenty minute walk back from the gym with the TAD fleece and a T shirt and was fine. Its 15 degrees. Its a great layer. The price is ridiculous, but you wont need another fleece for a long time.

Ah, many thanks, sir!

quote:

Originally posted by martin:
RT @nothingfuture @GreatDismal What shoes are you wearing on tour? I didn't recognize them at the reading I went too... [Visvim Logan Deck]

You're quite welcome, madame!

quote:

Originally posted by ealvarezgibson:
Ah, many thanks, sir!

quote:

Originally posted by martin:
RT @nothingfuture @GreatDismal What shoes are you wearing on tour? I didn't recognize them at the reading I went too... [Visvim Logan Deck]

Whole gear-queer thing baffles me. Why spend over $200 to look all hard-core military with a TAD Special Service sweater, when you can buy a genuine surplus British Army commando sweater for like $30?

the TAD gear brsnd narrative places you on the cutting edge of military technology. The Surplus narrative places you as iconoclast of the past.

and GearQueers love surplus too. Likely find a british wooly pully (commando sweater) under the TAD. IF wooly pulleys are in style right now. GearQueers follow fashion trends that sweep slow through the gearforums and blogs.

and high dollar items (IE TADgear, MAGpul) will always be envy enducing. Why drive a mazerati when you can buy a used jetta? impress people with jettas. why buy a porsche when you can have an miata? why buy Benchmade knives when you can get a gerber from Walmart? it takes a particular kind of type A personality to want to compete about everything including jackets.

Gear Queers like to post photos on the internet to impress other gearqueers. if you are at all interested checkout these blogs:

http://www.lgtkit.com/ <-- hardcore collector of Navy SEAL gear and also spotter of frauds on ebay which is an interesting topic on its own. Counterfeit SEAL webgear with battle wear and names written in marker can fetch a thousand USD on ebay.

militrymorons.com are the fashion plates "gear reviewers" ie product display shills gearqueers.

there's literally hundreds of these sites both industry and fan supported- it goes deep.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Roob,

here's another interesting geardo blog (geardo is the nicer version or gearqueer or gear whore):

http://geardoshit.wordpress.com/page/2/

lots of porno pixelate on this site.

The M-65 .. .. .. Classic.

quote:

Originally posted by Roob:
here's another interesting geardo blog (geardo is the nicer version or gearqueer or gear whore):

http://geardoshit.wordpress.com/page/2/

lots of porno pixelate on this site.

All that money for Airsoft??? Damn... How many of these guys are or have been the real deal (service)?

I've only known a few guys in the Canadian Armed Forces, one (my buddy) was a bit of a gear-guy (he was in PPCLI but finished right before his unit went to Afghanistan) at the beginning but that tapered off.

The other guy I worked with for 8 years and he was old school CAF, he was armoured recon and had his sniper course, served peace keeping tours in the Golan Heights and Cypress. Ran around in a 6 wheeler in Montreal during our little October Crisis. Not into gear at all. What he told me about collecting was flags. Catch with those was they were stolen from Isreali, Syrian, Greek or Turkish checkpoints, bases, etc where they would be shot if seen. A game they used to play. Seems more interesting to me than gear.

Airsoft is taking over what you would call the arm chair general geardo military enthusiast.. I dont know what you call them, but alot of it is stearing towards airsoft in the last 5 years or so. Especially in the south and midwest (of US)& Europe too.

Theres alot of old coots reliving their glory days as well as the zipper inspecting gear collectors that are just fantasinzing for the sake of it. Desk jobs and short weekends I guess. everyone wants to shoot each other.

I've airsoft'd, good fun really better than paint ball because I didnt come home covered in goo. But I wouldn't do it in 1000 dollars worth of collectors gear - that defies logic to me. But dudes compete about all kinds of stupid shit IMO. good for the economy. I suspect alot of this is dress up and walk around the living room and blog about having it type collecting though, and not just to play airsoft.

the guys I've known who have been in the service come home and shrug if you ask them about their gear. "I dunno, they issued it to me" Internet gear whores know ISDN numbers and issue dates of specific models of webgear and can spot factory runs by the color of the webbing trim.. its bizarre what the information explosion has created.

I dont even know if Mr Gibson knew how far the rabbit hole goes.

Nothing says angst like an M-65 field jacket. Talk about the patination of quality - If you have grandads M-65 I guarantee it's better made and in better condition than a chinese replica a 10/th it's age.

That's still a bit different than the fashion-type I think. I wonder what they would say if you said they were just LARPing? Heh.

The only specific gear item I remember my buddy talking about was a Gerber multi-tool that was issued before but they kept 'disappearing'. He brought home a training claymore (teal coloured) with a real detonator, and some live .50 rounds, and incendiary/tracer 5.56mm rounds. Not really gear that stuff, souvenirs maybe.

These Airsoft-types seem like they wouldn't be into the TAD stuff, for some reason. Authenticity issues maybe?