







GQ Style Spring Summer 2012 (click image to enlarge)
Designer Adam Kimmel styled a photo shoot with the 3rd Special Forces Group at Ft Bragg. Usually a reader will alert me to a story like this and save me from open-mouthed shock at a public magazine stand. GQ Style-U.K. calls the piece, "The Quiet Professionals." There's some irony for you. I don't think anyone at Ft Bragg will be calling 3rd Group quiet anymore.
Kimmel had 'Marlboro Man' photographer Jim Krantz shoot the spread for the magazine whose, "... challenge was to take fashion clothes and put them in the context of the Green Berets without making it look outlandish." You can see more of the Green Beret photo shoot here at Jim's web site. Jim must love shooting things that'll kill ya.
I don't think it looks outlandish. Silly, yes. I doubt Kimmel knows much about the Green Berets and probably less about the sacrifice a Staff Sergeant makes for $36,000 a year. But in fairness to a clueless hipster fashion designer and British fashion magazine -- the U.S. Army said yes. Which makes me wonder about future military collaborations with magazines.
Playboy's, "Threesome in an Abrams." Field & Stream's, "Fishing with Grenades." And Out Magazine's Norfolk Seamen, "We Don't Drink and We Don't Cuss - Nor-Fuck! Nor-Fuck!" Tax dollars subsidizing fashion photo shoots for British fashion mags. We called that FUBAR when I was in the Army - Great name for a magazine.