I’d like to say that generally I am quite selective with the items that I add to my collection, but sometimes a combination of factors can force the hand and that rule of quality has to be broken. These particular trousers in the somewhat elusive Brookwood camouflage that competed in the US Army’s Camouflage Improvement Effort that ran during a time period straddling 2010 (exact years vary in different sources), with the end result being the adoption of the current OCP on to the ACU.
Finalists in that program included Kryptek, Crye/Multicam, Hyperstealth US4CES and the Brookwood patterns. Commercial availability of these patterns varied significantly, and while enough was printed by each company to supply the trials with presumably US mil-spec fabrics (seemingly all rip-stop NYCO) and there was some left over, there was never a huge volume and the stocks of fabrics that were specifically produced for the trials were all bought/used up come the late 2010s.
To find out more about the short-lived and tumultuous venture that was Kratos SOG you can check out this other post covering my combat shirt made in the Brookwood arid pattern.
These particular trousers from Kratos are a Crye combat cut copy, mostly based on the G3 design with some elements from G2 and closed knee pad pockets. In theory this is a great design to use of course, fully proven and copied by hundreds of companies, but it is also very complex as clothing goes and it takes a comparatively long time to sew each item. If you commit to making this type of clothing but, for example, take too many pre-orders in comparison to your capacity to produce, if you over-promise your distributors or you don’t factor in a high enough price to actually cover your time/costs, then you inevitably run in to problems.
On paper the sewing pattern that Kratos clearly intended to use was based on all the usual ideas that make sense and ensure longevity, hence these bar-tacks on the pocket corners. But the rushed production also lead to these raw and roughly cut edges being visible in many places, including at the base of this flap. You will see raw material edges in various areas on high end clothing if you really dig deep and turn the deep pockets inside out for example, because the fabric has to have an edge somewhere, but the issue is far more common and egregious on these Kratos trousers.
This area is a strong example of the rushed and low quality sewing found in many places throughout this particular pair of pants. Particularly note the total mess on the lower edge of the waistband and the random use of white thread. Missing stitches, dead ends, wonky lines, etc etc.
Personally I really like this particular family of camos, they are quite modern and fairly effective but also have a distinct patterning and slightly unusual colour palette, especially to the transitional pattern. As a collector and hobbyist these trousers are a nice item to own, but they also show a prominent example of a business that obviously had an awful lot of issues and was forced to shut down. If Kratos had been able to continue and scale up production to produce combat uniforms in various unusual camo patterns, they undoubtedly would have make a killing during the camo boom of the ~2018-2022 time frame.
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