A British Army Royal Engineers captain jacket from a Paris street flea market was easily my most gleeful find of the year. Between that and the parade of pins and epaulettes in my eBay watchlist, the obsession speaks for itself. But I know I’m not the only one— your wardrobe is likely full of military relics, even if you haven’t noticed.
That staple white T-shirt? Once standard-issue Navy underwear. Those lace-up combat boots? Designed to endure warzones. Even your Tom Cruise-approved aviator sunglasses were born to reduce glare for U.S. pilots. These pieces are so embedded in everyday fashion that their martial origins are forgotten. But military style isn’t just a source of inspiration; it’s the architecture of modern clothing itself. From YSL’s pea coats to Elsa Schiaparelli’s “Cash and Carry” exaggerated pocket jackets—and, of course, Burberry’s iconic trench coats—designers have long referenced military codes because they shaped the very logic of ready-to-wear: standardised sizes, durable silhouettes, and utility-first design. As the original marriage between function and form, military clothing laid the groundwork for how we dress today.
Tom Cruise on the set of Top Gun (1986)
Photo: Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images
DESIGNED TO SURVIVE
Military clothing isn’t about trends; it’s about solutions. This wasn’t the case. Before the advent of modern warfare, battle uniforms were more about vanity, ornate displays of power that reflected the ruling government’s authority. Then entered the trenches, and survival demanded a shift. Out went decoration and in came durability, camouflage, and movement. Uniforms became purposeful systems— weatherproof, tactical, efficient. Function wasn’t just foundational, it became the future.
THE REBEL UNIFORM
The 1960s and ‘70s saw a spike in civilian use of military dress when U.S. anti-war protestors began wearing army clothing as statements of defiance, flipping the uniform’s original symbolism of order and conformity on its head. Garments that historically stood for service were recontextualised as a solidarity critique of the very system they represented, drawing attention to the young lives being drafted and deployed against their will. What’s more, military surplus was abundant, affordable, and instantly recognisable, making it an accessible symbol of rebellion. This countercultural adoption of military dress became part of a broader narrative, one that some of the most celebrated 21st-century designers would later reinterpret in their own work.
'Veterans for Peace in Vietnam' demonstration in New York City, 1967
Photo: Maury Englander/FPG/Archive Photos via Getty Images
I am very interested in military wear as uniform. I have looked at a lot of military wear in flea markets and antique shops since I started making clothes. The 2006 collection was about deconstruction and reconstruction of uniforms, which I then used as decorative details on the garments.
Junya Watanabe
AN ANTI-TREND
Military codes run deep in fashion, not only as an aesthetic but also as a design philosophy. Designers return to them season after season because they offer structure, purpose, and a built-in system that resists excess for decoration’s sake.
Take the recent SS26 season, where military influences were everywhere. In his Dior debut, Jonathan Anderson showed reengineered couture cargo shorts, modern tailcoats, and crisp dress shirts with frogging at button closures that felt fashionable and ceremonial. Meanwhile, Balmain’s website even includes an entire page under “House Signatures” dedicated to its military inspirations.
This lineage isn’t new. Helmut Lang, at his most industrial-minimal in the ‘90s, stripped military hardware down to its structural core, introducing civilian uniforms such as the legendary SS98 bulletproof vest, MA-1 bomber jacket, raw-edge parkas, and combat trousers. Raf Simons imagined a dystopian youth militia for FW2001’s Riot! Riot! Riot!, one of menswear’s most influential shows. His army of models wore oversized parkas and balaclavas, capturing the angst of the era and charged military silhouettes with political weight.
Junya Watanabe approaches utility as a technical exercise, building garments such as patchworked MA-1s and tactical vests that are designed with deconstruction in mind but grounded in discipline. A.F. Vandevorst, on the other hand, created intelligent collections that explored the interplay between feminine delicacy and the strength of a uniform, pairing heavy-duty military outerwear with lingerie. And in the trusted hands of Kiko Kostadinov, the utilitarian framework takes on an eclectic and experimental route. Tailoring remains sharp, but function drives the design.
Across seasons, military influence stays relevant not just because it can be provocative, but simply because it works. It offers a system without rigidity, symbolism without spectacle. In a culture obsessed with the next thing, there’s something grounding about clothes loaded with historical meaning and built to last. For all the noise of trend cycles, these codes are timeless— an ongoing study in fashion of form, function, and adaptation.
