CAMO FOR PEACE: giving camouflage a different purpose

This July, Tonello and Transnomadica present CAMO FOR PEACE at Kingpins New York, giving camouflage a meaning far removed from the battlefield.

The initiative draws on Transnomadica’s archive of nearly 15,000 vintage military garments. Surplus and archival pieces have been dyed, washed and reworked using Tonello’s garment finishing technologies, preserving what was already there while changing how it is seen.

Camouflage was originally borrowed from nature: a way to blend in, adapt and coexist. Over time, it became closely associated with war. CAMO FOR PEACE takes that familiar visual language and turns it in another direction. What once concealed now communicates.

The work is not presented as a fashion collection or a commercial collaboration, but as a message carried through clothing. By extending the life of existing military textiles and altering their surfaces, the initiative asks whether design can give old symbols a different future. As its central statement suggests, the most peaceful garment, like the most sustainable one, is the one that already exists.

Alice Tonello, Chief Brand & Strategy Officer at Tonello, comments:

“There’s something special about a message you can wear every day. Inspired by nature and brought to life through technology and creativity, these garments remind us that peace, like freedom, begins with the choices we make.”

Maurizio Donadi, founder of Transnomadica, adds:

“Nature invented camouflage so that life could coexist. We borrowed it for war. With CAMO FOR PEACE, we are simply giving it back its first purpose: to live in harmony with the environment and with one another.”

Also on display at Kingpins New York will be Botanical Alchemy – Part II: Still Blooming, the continuation of Tonello’s collaboration with MN Dye Studio. Six months ago, garments, natural dye ingredients and plant-based waste were sealed together inside vacuum bags. The pieces will now be revealed, showing how nature, temperature and time continued to work long after the bags were closed.

CAMO FOR PEACE and BOTANICAL ALCHEMY will be presented at Kingpins New York, taking place on July 22–23, where visitors will have the opportunity to meet the Tonello team and Maurizio Donadi.