STANDARD KHAKI

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 July 1942, Page 4

STANDARD KHAKI

OBTAINED BY BLENDING METHOD. Five bright-hued wools are now blended together to produce the earthy colour of khaki first widely used in South Africa for the uniforms of the British Army. In peace time the process was a secret belonging to the West Riding of Yorkshire, where the heavy woollen industry first discovered how to blend wools of six colours into khaki thread. But today the West Riding shares its secret with all other wool spinning areas in the United Kingdom, so that the whole industry can go ahead with the, colossal job of putting the troops into uniform. The blending is now standardised and the number of colours reduced by one. The correct proportions of blue, yellow, brown, red and mauve wools are torn up by huge combs which separate, mix and blend them. Gradually each colour begins to lose its identity, just as the colours on a spinning top will merge into a misty grey. At first the mass of clawed wool is patchy—bluish here, yellowish there—-and then, as the machines complete the job, the colours become so well blended that khaki finally emerges from the rainbow of colour. This blending process gives an evener and more lasting result than dyeing the cloth in the piece as was done in the early days. In the war of 1914-18 the difficulties of replacing dyes formerly imported from Germany produced colours which varied in different parts of the country from almost grass green to dark brown. Today colour charts and Ministry of Supply specifications result in every mill weaving exactly the same shade and each piece of khaki cloth is carefully inspected before being passed out.