A major London exhibition on the history of military camouflage looks at how it took to the field and ended up on the catwalk.
Dress the French army as harlequins, Picasso reportedly quipped during World War I, and the diamonds will make them harder for the enemy to see.
France, perhaps wisely, declined to kit out its soldiers as Italian clowns but was otherwise happy to apply Cubism to the war effort, on the principle that a broken-up form is harder for a spotter-plane to sight.
The Section de Camouflage, staffed with minor Cubist painters and set designers, was born in 1915 and no major piece of military hardware would ever be safe again from the paint-brush.
Now London's Imperial War Museum is paying tribute to the camofleurs and their successors around the world with what it boasts to be the largest-ever such exhibition.
On display are relics of the Section, and everything from 150 original model boats showing the famous Dazzle technique developed for British ships to the latest camouflage patterns of the US Army.
Camouflage in fashion makes an entry in the form of Gaultier and Galliano dresses, while other items include a pair of combat trousers worn by Clash singer Joe Strummer and "urban camouflage" costumes from David Byrne's film True Stories.
Break it up
One may only wonder what the Imperial German Army would have made of an advancing line of parti-coloured Italian clowns with rifles.
Back in Napoleonic times, high-visibility uniforms were the battle order of the day, as French blues and Russian greens, British reds and Austrian whites marched forth.
"It was basically a way of identifying soldiers but it was also about the camaraderie that comes from wearing the same kit," Tim Newark, author of new book Camouflage, told the BBC News website.
Military camouflage really started in the middle of the 19th Century with the introduction of khaki, he says, but what we think of camouflage now evolved in World War I to counter the new menaces of aircraft and submarines.
Khaki, Mr Newark points out, works when you are in a particular landscape but once you move you lose the effect and that is where disruptive pattern - light and dark tones juxtaposed to break up the form of a soldier, tank or battleship at a distance - comes in.
"It's not so much about disappearing on the battlefield as helping to break up the expected, actual profile," he says.
World War I camofleurs concentrated on hardware like artillery and ships, with the British soon catching up on the French after initial reservations about the military benefits of Cubism, despised by some as "Boche art".
Snipers got custom-made suits, such as the sinister, mummer-like British coats on display here, but mass-produced infantry camouflage had to wait until advances in textile printing.
In World War II, concealment and deception techniques reached a new level. "Camouflage nets baffle the Hun," declared a British poster on show but vast nets were only part of it: at Tobruk, the British would decorate strategic buildings with fake shell-holes and rubble to make them look as if they had been bombed in air raids.
Fresh foliage, please
Another World War II innovation was fake rubber feet which secret agents landing on beaches could attach to their boots in the Far East to fool the Japanese. A cunning idea but said to be "a bit uncomfortable".
We asked Mr Newark about examples of camouflage techniques which looked better on paper than in practice.
"Mm, there was the idea of putting foliage on things," he says.
"The fact is that the foliage dies and turns brown and it is very clear to see a tank covered in dead foliage, so soldiers were taught in both wars not to use foliage."
Then there was the famous "chocolate chip" desert pattern used in the First Gulf War, which proved very unpopular with American troops.
"Soldiers like wearing camouflage and this didn't really look soldier-like so they dropped it and replaced it with a pattern which made them feel more like soldiers and less like a cartoon," Mr Newark says.
So where did all that chocolate chip surplus go? To the army of the Republic of Iraq and a few other militaries.
Spreading the net
Camouflage caught the French popular imagination in World War I, while Dazzle inspired futuristic ball-gowns in Britain just after the war, the exhibition reveals.
Modern designers have played with a concept which appeals to many as a fashion item. Gaultier's startling camouflage evening dress looks at a distance to have the texture of a rug but, up close, appears made of delicate chiffon.
"In Britain the army quite likes to see camouflage being used in fashion because at the end of the day it doesn't want to be different from the people it is fighting for and likes to be understood and appreciated by them," says Tim Newark.
"At one stage, the British Army thought of making their own street wear which they could sell and which would encourage interest in the military."
Camouflage certainly has come a long way from 1915, when the French army set up its new unit.
A greatcoat worn by one of the Section's pioneers, Eugene Corbin, is believed to be the oldest surviving example of disruptive pattern in a uniform.
Corbin, whose camouflaged versions of a kepi, jacket and cape are also on display at the museum, designed the coat after seeing three comrades killed by a German aircraft.
It is a poignant reminder of the deadly serious reason for this military revolution.
Camouflage runs at the Imperial war Museum from 23 March to18 November. Tim Newark's book Camouflage is now on sale.
