Matthieu Nicol, Fashion Army, 2024

Fashion Army investigates the evolution of military clothing into iconic fashion. French visual researcher Matthieu Nicol presents a catalog of three hundred and fifty documentary images from the declassified archives of the U.S. Army Natick Laboratories, tracing military style from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. These images show the meticulous development of clothing and equipment designed for both the battlefield and everyday military life, highlighting the deep connection between fashion, power, and aesthetics. Through this ambiguous and compelling sequence, Fashion Army offers a nuanced account of the style, innovation, and far-reaching influence of military clothing on fashion and identity, ultimately interrogating the meanings of violence embedded in such clothing.

It includes an essay by renowned fashion critic Angelo Flaccavento, who reflects on the interaction between military functionality and the fashion industry.