And with the movie Pearl Harbor set for release in May, the streets may soon look like a military base. Employees at the Army-Navy Surplus store in Waco said women are buying camouflage clothes for fashion. Employee Ron Ramos said shirts that say Marines or Army are extremely popular. Gloria Romo said one female customer bought a camouflage T-shirt because she noticed a picture in Cosmopolitan magazine. Other women are buying them for parties or everyday wear, she said.
Men still buy camouflage for hunting, but are now branching out to include it for their daily wear.
Today, fashion designers such as Christian Dior, Miguel Adrover, Louis Vuitton, Celine and Miu Miu have added the military style to their collections. Although camouflage seems to be resurfacing as the foremost pattern, other military styles are popular as well. Trench coats, berets and brass buttons are considered military chic. Teen-agers in the 1950s and 1960s proudly wore the style. Driving the interest in military fashions is the popularity of some war movies, such as Saving Private Ryan and Enemy at the Gates, said Juan Gonzalez, owner of World War II Impressions in California, which made uniforms for Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbor .