Cotton 100% 

 NEW with tag. 

 Perfect quality. 

 USSR Military Old Stock 

 Size: S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL, 4XL 

All sizes always in stock. 

 Please, ATTACH your Message what size you need and we will ship it. 

 The vest, otherwise called a sweatshirt, vest, or even the romantic phrase “sea soul,” begins its history from the time of the advent of the European sailing fleet. It is believed that the white-blue or white-blue coloring of the vest helped during sea voyages to always see sailors against the backdrop of snow-white sails, as well as to observe them in the water if they accidentally fell overboard. The first naval vests appeared in the Breton navy back in the 16th century. Then they had exactly 12 black and white stripes, the number of human ribs. In this way, the sailors wanted to deceive death itself. She was supposed to take the sailors for already dead and not touch them. And this is not a random belief, because in those days, traveling by sea was a very dangerous activity. The tradition with 12 transverse stripes was adopted from the British by the Dutch. But the French sailors already had 21 stripes on their vests, each of which symbolized one of Napoleon’s major victories. The European experience of using vests was transferred to Russian soil only on August 19, 1874, by order of Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov. Initially, a white-and-blue striped vest belonged exclusively to sailors of the Russian military fleet. And if at the end of the 19th century the naval vest consisted of white and blue stripes, among which the white stripes were much wider, then in our time this item of clothing contains white and blue stripes of the same width (approximately from 0.5 to 1.5 cm). Previously, vests were made from cotton and wool (in equal quantities), but now in most cases 100% natural cotton is used. Nowadays, the Airborne Forces are armed with vests with light blue stripes alternating with white. And the tradition of rewarding paratroopers who made the first parachute jump into water began in 1959. It was then, during the exercises, that Colonel V.A. Ustinovich presented the paratroopers with naval vests as a reward for successfully completing the assigned task. Although the idea of ​​introducing vests with blue and white stripes into the Airborne Forces was carried out by the commander of the Airborne Forces V.F. Margelov and earlier, back in 1954-1959, as well as at a later time. In the end, it was decided to make the vest an official part of the military clothing of the Airborne Forces, but only replace the blue stripes with light blue ones, symbolizing the color of the daytime sky in bright weather. And already in 1969, during the conflict in Czechoslovakia, all paratroopers wore uniform vests. Officially, this item of military clothing was assigned to the Airborne Forces by the Order of the USSR Ministry of Defense in 1969.