How was camo invented?

Answer 1

Rise of Military Camo:

"The emergence of aerial and trench warfare during World War I gave rise to the strategy - and art - of camouflaged battle dress, sparking an unexpectedly fruitful collaboration among soldiers, artists and naturalists like Abbott Thayer, whose 1909 book "Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom" became required reading for the U.S. Army's newly launched unit of camoufleurs.

"Now that troops had to avoid bombs dropped from the sky, mines underfoot and bullets from pretty much everywhere else, the gloriously regal (not to mention flamboyant) garb worn in an earlier era of warfare began to seem a bit outdated, if not downright dangerous.

"It is a wonderful opportunity, this game of hokus-pokus," the New York Times mused in a 1917 Op-Ed about the newfangled concept of "camouflage," borrowed from the French word camoufler, "to disguise."

"Military camo went mainstream after a hunting enthusiast named Jim Crumley used a Magic Marker to draw vertical tree-trunk lines on a few pairs of tie-dyed coats and pants in the late 1970s. A decade and two mortgages later, his patented "Trebark" design had gone from being featured in a few small ads in Bowhunter magazine to appearing in nearly every major outdoors catalog in the country.

Mossy Oak Camo

"Mossy Oak began in West Point,Mississippi, with a fistful of dirt. Obsessed with the notion of getting closer to critters, Mossy Oak's founder and CEO, Toxey Haas, gathered up a bag of leaves, sticks and dirt from under his favorite hunting tree, walked into a fabric factory and dropped it on the counter. Facing an audience of startled faces he made a bold request, "Can you print fabric that looks like the stuff in the bag?"

"People snickered, shook their heads and probably contemplated calling security. Little did they know he was on to something big.

"Toxey realized that the key to developing natural looking camouflage was to use natural elements: dirt, leaves, bark and limbs, along with their natural colors to allow the wearer to blend in perfectly with their natural surroundings. Before then, most camouflage patterns simply obscured the outline of the wearer, which made the person more difficult to see at a distance."