Strange threadfellows: How the U.S. military shaped what we all wear

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From nuclear fission to GPS to the internet, it’s common knowledge that many of the most resource intensive technologies of the last century got their start as military R&D projects in government-funded labs. But as Avery Trufelman explains in her fashion history podcast, Articles of Interest, the influence of the US military is, in many ways, even more intimate than that, shaping much of the clothing we all wear everyday.

On today’s show, a tale of Army surplus economics. How military designs trickled down from the soldiers on the front lines to the hippies on the war protest line to the yuppies in line at Banana Republic. And why some of your favorite outdoor brands may just be moonlighting as U.S. military suppliers, while keeping it as under the radar as they can.

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This episode of Planet Money was produced by Luis Gallo, edited by Jess Jiang, fact checked by Yasmine Alsayyad, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

Articles of Interest is produced by Avery Trufelman, edited by Alison Beringer, fact checked by Yasmine Alsayyad, and engineered by Jocelyn Gonzalez.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message come from FreshWorks,
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0:07.3	Stop wrestling with bloated, expensive software,
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0:14.6	Learn more at freshworks.com.
0:18.9	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:24.5	The other day, I brought a couple pairs of binoculars to Lower Manhattan
0:28.4	to meet up with fashion reporter Avery Truffleman.
0:31.7	We were there to do a little bit of urban birding.
0:34.6	Are you a big birder?
0:36.1	I don't do outdoorsy things.
0:40.8	It's not in my nature. I'm not an outdoorsy guy. Luckily, Avery made an exception for us because we were not, in fact, heading out to
0:47.2	spot migratory birds with spectacular plumage. No, no, no. We were on the hunt for some very particular kinds of clothing.
0:57.1	Would it be fair to say that fashion is kind of your Roman Empire?
1:01.3	Yeah, I would say fashion is my Roman Empire.
1:05.9	You see, Avery is the host of a podcast called Articles of Interest, which is all about unraveling the hidden
1:12.0	histories behind the things we wear. She's done deep dives into the question of why women's clothing
1:17.5	didn't used to have pockets, or how preppy Ivy League style got big in Japan. And I wanted to talk to
1:24.5	Avery because her latest season is all about how a massive shadowy force
1:29.3	has been shaping the stuff we all wear for the better part of the last century in ways that
1:34.2	most of us might not know about.
1:36.6	And what is that shadowy force, you might ask?
	...

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