As some of you might know, but most probably don’t, a month ago we were blessed with the news that the Finnish military is finally giving up their silly copyright on the current issue M05 camouflage patterns. This is super fantastic news for us and Finland in general. In Finland all things military are a very normal part of everyday life, most men (and some volunteer women to) do military service and are then part of the military reserves, getting called up from time to time for refresher training. Recently volunteer reservist units have become more and more popular.
The thing is that up until now the Finnish military has been extremely stuck-up about private purchase of gear and clothing, and the fact that commercial production and retail of the current issue camo has been totally banned in Finland has naturally just made this worse. Everywhere else there is commercial production of “better than issue” gear, and this stuff is commonly used by soldiers, but not in Finland, no. But luckily this is about to change and soon we’ll be able to offer MILSPEC-grade fieldwear and gear in M05 camo!
So, the news is that on the 26th of September the copyright will expire and from that day on we are free to produce and sell any and all things M05! This is something we’ve been waiting and hoping for for a long time, and we are ready!
The launch
At the moment it looks as if we will be releasing these “standard” pieces on the 26th of September, with more gear and clothing to follow in the weeks after:
M05 summer camo jacket (estimated price 90-100 euros)
M05 summer camo trousers (estimated price 70-80 euros)
M05 summer camo field cap (estimated price 20 euros)
M05 summer camo boonie (estimated price 20-30 euros)
These are the standard issue models, but with small improvements. The truth is that the issue clothing isn't exactly fantastic - it's okay at best. So we decided to give these some subtle improvements to bring them up to "OK+" level. We will be going into the finer details as soon as we get the samples sewn, hopefully later this month!
Preorder
We are hoping to offer all of the above (jacket, pants, and hats) for preorder in June. This is still not 100% sure as it may well be that the Finnish military decides that, as long as the camo is still protected, we cannot offer it for sale, not even preorders. If and when the preorder happens, we will be offering each and every size of the jacket and pants, which means 29 sizes (including four different height options) to choose from. We will not be stocking all of these sizes in the future, so if you are a rare size, we recommend seizing this opportunity to get the right size!
Check out the Finnish M05 camouflage product category.
Special stuff
On top of the aforementioned standard uniform pieces we have some interesting special gear in the works, too. If all goes well we will be launching these in October. We are also currently working on our own fieldwear designs, but there's not much worth mentioning just yet.
Hardshell jacket, maybe pants, too (based on the Finnish special forces Gore-Tex suit)
Combat shirt ( a pretty standard model)
Combat pants (Crye-style)
M13 rainwear (the latest standard issue rainwear of the Finnish Army)
Finnish WW2-style field cap (a true classic)
Tarps and ponchos (maybe a few different sizes)
Packs, bags, pouches, etc.
More information will follow as the project progresses. Keep an eye on our Facebook page for all of the latest updates!