There is not a lot of concrete information about these uniforms available, but after posting them on social media I have been able to learn a little bit via word of mouth (in the modern digital sense).
The story goes that these were produced around the time of Gulf War 1 as a commercial venture. Shirts, trousers, caps, boonies and M1 helmet covers were manufactured to hopefully sell to troops deploying to Kuwait, but said troops all left before the kit made it on to the store shelves.
What I can say is that this set is quite old, certainly not modern production resulting from more recent hype over DNC pattern; which is why I bought it up quickly when I saw it. Personally, the only issued items I had seen in DNC prior to this set were the infamous Gulf 1 Parka and the associated matching over-pants.
Fabric wise this set seems to be made from the same 50/50 NYCO Twill that the aforementioned ubiquitous parkas were made from. The story goes that large amounts of this fabric was printed, in fact more than was needed for any DoD contracts for parkas, and that excess fabric was bought up for these BDUs. Potentially the bulk order was placed by a gear/surplus store called Saigon Sam’s near Fort Bragg(/Liberty) in North Carolina.
The cut is the same as the DBDUs I own, aka 6 Col Desert uniform, aka the original format of Choc Chip camo apparel. Most notably, the collar is a lot larger than the common US Woodland and 3 Col Desert camo BDUs that were made in their millions during the 90s. Otherwise however this is a 4 pocket shirt with button front closure and cuffs very much like all other US issued BDUs.
Whether the name tape, US Army tape and metal U.S. collar devices attached to this shirt were placed there in service or by a re-enactor I have no way of knowing. They look to be real/issued, but they most likely would have been attached by someone for the purposes of a display or collection, or for usage in some sort of media production.
As visible here, the 4-hole buttons sewn to this set are, as far as I can tell, identical to the ones used on the DNC parkas. Even the thread for all the stitching seems to be the exact same colour as found on the parkas.
Unfortunately I have not been able to find any information online about M.L.M. Manufacturing. They may well have been an organisation that has long disbanded and potentially never had any commercial retail presence.
The bottom line of this label is an FSN, or Federal Stock Number which in theory pre-dates the NSN system. FSNs were phased out in the 70s, so the label is perhaps just printed in an old and obsolete format that the contractor was familiar with making or was already setup to print en masse. The second number, 83, signifies a manufacture date of 1983, but again these pants were quite likely made in the early 90s for commercial sale, so the label could be anachronistic.
Everything mentioned above regarding the shirt applies to the pants with this pair of trousers. Same old labels, same fabric and the same old DBDU style cut. The one feature that really stands out on these (and 6 Col Desert pants) is the extra pleat in the knee, which is not present on any US Woodland or 3 Col Desert pants I’ve ever seen myself.
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