In my quest for an affordable unisex/androgynous way of dressing myself I found myself looking at army/military surplus clothing.  Suppliers here in NZ have a fair bit of second hand European and Soviet clothing at the moment which almost tempted me until I started to think about whether or not it's disrespectful to veterans to wear military issue clothing when you've got no service history yourself.  I might be an ex veteran social worker who often felt like she was working in an urban war zone, only they never gave me a uniform for doing that.

Thoughts anyone?

I don't think there's any issue at all with buying and wearing surplus clothing. I sold all my uniforms when I got out of the Army. Wearing unit patches, regalia, rank, or military awards is a completely different story. That, in my opinion, would be disrespectful. I hope this helps!

Hugs, Devlyn

the clothes themselves is perfectly fine they are sold second hand legally and can be worn by anyone. However, the unit patches, rank insignia, etc would be impersonating an officer which I believe is illegal. I frequently wore hand me downs from a Navy SEAL that lived near us, then bought second hand stuff from the Army/Navy stores or new stuff from LAPoliceGear. you can get some pretty excellent stuff from LAPG 511 pants are top quality with some great features. My brother is a firefighter and alot of them wear 511 exclusively. Look into EMT pants as well as they are a similar cut to military/ tactical clothing.

I don't think any veterans would be offended by wearing clothing.Rank badges,regiment badges and medals shouldn't be worn unless you earned them.

Dont buy the Soviet stuff, just... dont. It feels like crap and looks very much the same. Trust me, I know .
This is a pic from WW2 reenacment event, but most parts of uniform were made by using post-war surplus cause not much changed during the next 50 years, especially quality-wise (another reason why You probably dont want to wear this stuff). The same goes about East-German stuff, if it comes up. Swedish stuff was quite nice, as far as I remember .

I go through this inner struggle myself.  I REALLY want to wear military uniforms, but people would know by my gut that I'd likely had no experience in the military.  I am inclined to agree with the others though that as long as you avoid the patches and awards, etc., then you should be good. I think the U.S. Army is about to switch over their uniforms soon, so there will be even more tons of surplus.  Besides, a lot of militias, wear military uniforms.





There's one guy in this documentary who is wearing a military uniform, and he has to be 300 + pounds (4:40 - 7:12).  If he could wear one, I'm sure you could!  :p

Hey thanks for the helpful responses everyone

I knew that there are a lot of veterans among my brothers and sisters here on Susan's and I didn't want to offend anyone by the clothing I choose to wear.

Thanks for telling me about the Soviet era stuff Emily, - I will now cross that off my list.  So it looks like I will be now taking a closer look at the French and Dutch surplus clothing which seems to be around at the moment.  Some of the suppliers here have Swedish equipment rather than clothing which looks very good.  I particularly like the gas mask shoulder bags.
A lot of surplus equipment is being marketed to the paintball crowd which makes a certain amount of sense.  If I was 20 years younger I wouldn't mind giving paintball a go, but those days have well and truly flown now.