Tiger Stripe camouflage uniform

The tiger stripe family of camouflage patterns is a direct descendant of the original French tenue leopard lizard pattern of the 1950s. French camouflage uniforms were in fact worn by Vietnamese troops during the First Indochina War. The Vietnamese referred to these different designs as Sọc Răn (striped uniform). Many different styles of tiger pattern emerged between 1964 and 1975 and have been exhaustively documented by author Richard D. Johnson in his excellent book Tiger Patterns. Manufacture of the individual patterns and textiles extended to factories in various parts of Asia, including some locally made in South Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan. Presented here are a handful of samples from original garments that were produced during this time period.

The very first tiger stripe design was a locally-made copy of the French lizard pattern produced for the Vietnamese Marine Corps (Thữy Quân Lục-Chiến). The pattern incorporates bold black stripes over lesser brownish-drab stripes & light green trace elements, with an olive green base color. Production of this design ended in 1967, although units continued to wear the pattern until 1970. Illustrated below are the original pattern (far left), followed by two variants designated “sparse” and “dense.” Consensus suggests both textiles and uniforms were all produced in South Vietnam, but that 2nd pattern uniforms may also have been produced in the Republic of Korea