Hodinkee
Introducing: Toledano & Chan B/1 Dazzle Is A Perfect Interpretation Of One Of The Weirdest Camouflage Patterns Ever
What We Know Have you played "hide a World War I battleship?" I mean, who hasn't? It's basically the number two teenage pastime in the United States Midwest and Great Plains, with all those giant bodies of water in places like Nebraska, South Dakota, and the like. No? Okay, well, hiding ships was a life-or-death proposition back in World War I and World War II, and for a brief period from around 1917 to 1918, the answer was not to try to hide them at all. That's where Toledano & Chan got the idea for the new b/1 "Dazzle:" obfuscate, not obliterate. If the concept of "dazzle camo" sounds familiar, it's because Bulgari tried its own version of this disruptive pattern material (DPM, as it's known in the industry) just a few months ago. We even mentioned this watch coming from Toledano & Chan, which was revealed when it was nominated for a GPHG award. As a refresher, I'm going to paraphrase what I said before. British zoologist John Graham Kerr proposed (to Winston Churchill in 1914) a DPM designed to change the perceived outline, size, distance, and direction of ships at sea based on the same concept that zebras use to hide their distance and numbers from predators. The idea was convincing enough that a large number of ships were painted, and while some German U-Boat captains did say that the pattern was effective, it's still unclear how true that was. Regardless, radar basically made the whole idea obsolete, and now it's largely an oddity outside the automobile road-test...
