"Orange uniforms?" Topic

In one of the collections of AWI miniatures I bought, I got a command stand with orange coats (& white pants). I can't find any reference to an AWI unit wearing orange, but my reference library is small and my personal knowledge of period uniform trivia is pitiful. Can anyone confirm or deny the existence of such a uniform?

If this is a keeper, I'll paint a unit to go with them, otherwise I'll just overpaint the coats with a more likely color.

- Ix

The British 35th foot had orange facings, and the drummer would have had reversed colors.
The Hessian alt von Lossberg regiment would have had orange facings and turnbacks.

But that's the only orange I have ever heard of in the AWI. Not the coat, just the facings.
Could it be badly painted British with the scarlet too bright?

Prisons dept, battalion? :)

Or something from India or such?

The Imperial Pylon Reg't? They don't advamce, they don't retreat. They just stand there.

I could have sworn there was a native unit in the Caribbean or India that had orange uniforms, but I can't find the reference that I thought I saw it in. Could totally be wrong, too, of course.

Humbrol paints used to have a color they called "British Scarlet". It came out looking orange or melon. Could it be the original owner used this?

I'm inclined to say that your orange-clad AWI figures aren't all that accurate. I say this because of my own knowledge of AWI uniforms, and because of what other miniature painters (and even myself, sigh) have been capable of painting in the past.

With humility and kindness, I will relate that an old gaming buddy of mine, who has since left this world, loved the color turquoise. He used it on his ancient Persians, he used it for facing colors for his Napoleonic Wurtemburg [sp?] soldiers, and probably used it on other historical miniatures which I can't remember at the moment. It wasn't that my old friend wasn't a good painter, because he was. His love of the color turquoise was just a quirk of his.

Something Dutch?

What a pity. I love the color orange but historical armies don't feature it enough.

@ Yellow Admiral – You possibly won't need a complete repaint; a dark brown wash should transform the orange (I'm assuming it's not luminous or "day-glo") into a useable and, more importantly, period authentic colour.

No AWI unit I've ever come across wore orange coats; the 35th Foot, the Fusilier Regiment von Lossberg, and one Loyalist unit, the King's Orange Rangers (raised in Orange County, NY, in 1776, and only wore red-faced-orange from 1780). The British and Loyalist units most likely had musicians in reversed colours – but probably not as "bright" as Franklin's new(ish) book on British SYW and AWI unniforms makes out.

link

@ piper909 – The reason orange doesn't feature much in the H&M era it because it simply was not a viable colour given the limitations of 18th Century dyeing methods. Just like black, it was very expensive to make because it required a lot of processes to stop it fading – hence it tended to be used/worn only by the very wealthy. Mostly, it quickly turned into a yellowy brown, or dark ochre, which was the main reason the Dutch swapped it for red in their flag, and why surviving examples of cloth from the 35th Foot (the only British unit to wear facings that colour) are tawny.

Actually lots of ways to make many colors back then. And many materials available to fix the dye.

link

How many were cheap enough to clothe a regiment? There's a reason the uniform pallet was not all that varied.

Many were quite common, if anybody bothered to actually follow the link and read the article.

But don't let anybody upset the "natural dyes don't give bright colors and fade quickly" mantra, or "mordants didn't exist until the modern industrial era".

I don't recall any unit having orange uniforms, and that's not what I'm trying to dispute. Only there are a lot of misconceptions and outright false statements about dyes and colors before the modern era.

The Imperial Pylon Reg't? They don't advamce, they don't retreat. They just stand there.

And everything revolves around them. ;-)

Actually lots of ways to make many colors back then. And many materials available to fix the dye.

Sorry, but I'm afraid your link proves nothing in relation to large-scale dyeing in the 16th-18th Centuries. It's all very well some modern-day "wannabe pioneer" re-colouring modern pre-manufactured sweaters or t-shirts, or skeins of pre-treated wool; that is not proof that particular colours could be achieved in large quantities 3-400 years ago, using raw cloth. However, the site provides no evidence of historical use of any of these dyes; here are the problems:

1) Did European commercial dyers back then KNOW that a particular product could produce that colour? This may only have been discovered in recent years.

2) Were the materials used to produce certain dyes known to Europeans (as that's who we're mainly talking about here) at that time?

3) If so, were they available in sufficient quantities and at affordable prices, to make the process(es) viable? Similarly, the mordants she lists (salt and plant fixatives) would have to have been available in large quantities and at affordable prices.

4) Did they work on the raw, untreated cloths of the time, as opposed to modern processed materials?

5) Many cloth dyers were small contractors, who would have had difficulty obtaining access to, let alone affording, more exotic dyes. Even the larger commercial enterprises in towns and cities would have had to rely on importation.

Looking at the "orange" menu on the link, take her first example, Alnus Rubra or Red Alder. This is indigenous to the west coast of N America and was unknown to Europeans until the late 19th Century – perhaps slightly earlier if its use was observed among local tribes by explorers.
Barberry/Mahonia, Giant Coropsis – both also native to the west coast of N America
Bloodroot, Butternut, Sassaafrass – all native to the east coast of N America (Bloodroot is also toxic, so was probably shunned anyway until folk knew more about it)
Eucalyptus – indigenous to Australasia and surrounding parts of SE Asia
Pomegranate – grown only in the Mediterranean part of Europe, very expensive and unlikely that skins would be widely available in industrial quantities
Turmeric – comes from south east India, and was imported exclusively as a spice until recent times (although cloth dyed using it would have been available – however, this would have been expensive and thus, as I said earlier, largely the preserve of the wealthy).

As for the others:-
Carrots – orange carrots have only been around since 1600 (invented by the Dutch), and other colours were much more common in Europe until the 19th Century; purchasing large quantities of carrots – not to mention competing with folk who wanted them for food – would not have been as easy back then as it is today.
Onion skins don't really produce an orange colour:-
link
Lilac – native to the Balkans and not common to western Europe till the 19th Century; also doesn't really make orange.

But don't let anybody upset the "natural dyes don't give bright colors and fade quickly" mantra, or "mordants didn't exist until the modern industrial era".

I'm sorry, but who actually declared this as a broad generalisation on this thread? And once again I have to ask how a link to someone doing a bit of "home dyeing" equates to large-scale production of coloured cloth on a commercial basis? the reality is that Europeans tended to use less exotic dyes, and basic earth/plant mordants; whereas producers in India and Asia used more exotic dyes and metallic salt mordants. The latter combination gave the richest and longest-lasting colours.

kws.atlantia.sca.org/dyeing.html

Well, that was my point. Industrial production on a regimental, or national army scale.

If it had been possible to produce orange uniforms on an army scale, and if they did not fade too much, I am sure we would have had such uniforms.