Clothing on FS?

Okay, so we know it’s not a $500 video card, a fancy CPU heatsink, or the latest RTS or shooter. And even though we are pretty sure you won’t find any screenshots of aliens, Nazis, or performance graphs in this article (although we sat around for hours trying to figure out someway to benchmark these things), we still think there are plenty of reasons our readers will want to read this review through to its conclusion. And besides, it’s the Holidays, isn’t it? And a year of record breaking cold to boot.

FiringSquad readers are sure to have other interests in their life beyond the latest games and technology, right? Yah, we didn’t think so either, which is why we still felt fine about reviewing this particular line of clothing.

That’s because this line of clothing is built around the ominpresence of technology. Cellphones, PDAs, PSPs, cameras, TV remote controls - it’s hard to live in the 21st century without carrying around at least a few things that beep or light up. And that was the motivation that drove the company’s founder, Scott Jordan to come up with the first product – the Scottevest. When it was released in 2001, it was a “must have” for well-heeled geeks, techies, and gadget aficionados. It got a lot of attention in the press for its intelligent design and carrying capacity, but its price kept it out of the hands of the common folk.

The Secret Service and the C.I.A. aren’t common folk though. So with a government that spends $700 on a toilet seat, it’s not surprising that intelligence, military, and undercover law enforcement units began buying them in spades.

Since that first vest, each subsequent generation of the clothing has undergone various improvements and cleverly been given version numbers like software releases. It’s primarily the latest version, 4.0 and its unique internal systems that we have evaluated here.

And what do we mean by “internal systems”? Well, while the first Scottevest was really just a very durable vest lousy with well-placed pockets, most version 4.0 apparel have more sophisticated features like the patented “PAN”, magnetic closures, and a weight management system.


The PAN is an acronym for your Personal Area Network. Regardless of the proliferation of Bluetooth headsets for cellular phones, the majority of us still haven’t gone completely wireless. Many PDAs, audio monitoring devices (remember - CIA agents wear these things), push-button detonator switches (so could sleeper agents), MP3 players, and handheld TVs still benefit from the use of wires. So with the inclusion of the PAN, Scottevest (SeV) clothing has its pockets, collars, inner lining, and even sleeves, all given small strategically placed holes and conduits. This allows you to keep your ipod nano in the sleeve pocket of the Tactical 4.0 jacket and have the headphone cord be entirely hidden until it emerges just beneath your ear. You could also pull on the jacket’s hide-away hood and keep it entirely concealed.