Welcome to this week’s Six Secrets where the cut of a cloth can mean the difference between life and death, fashion can be a coded signal, and disguise is a daily essential.
Spy style
Undercover spies hide in plain sight while abroad but being able to pass for a local depends on more than just an ability to speak the language and order a whiskey. It also means looking the part. The wrong cut or outdated fashion could mean the difference between life and death behind enemy lines. We’ve dug up five secrets from the stylists in charge of keeping spies safe.
The CIA’s ‘Disguise-on-the-Run’ was created during the Cold War when officers had only seconds to shake off Russian surveillance and alter their appearance. Spies had to nail 45 moves in 45 seconds to complete the transformation - easy enough in the office but how did it work on the cold streets of Moscow where spies lurked around every corner?
Coco Chanel was synonymous with haute couture but to her Nazi handlers, she was agent F-7124, mingling with British PM Winston Churchill and other powerful figures. After the Nazis took over Paris in 1940, Chanel cozied up to an officer in the Abwehr, the German military intelligence, but what exactly was the French spy up to?
Fashion is a language that can communicate solidarity, freedom, or rebellion. We wear courage on our sleeves and shout defiance in bold colors. SPYSCAPE decodes the signs and signals, from Malala’s jeans to Mao suits and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s man-of-the-people T-shirt.
How do you get into a building you don’t have clearance to enter? Or listen to conversations you’re not meant to hear? Spies know how to dress and act in a way that allows them to blend into their surroundings. It’s a crucial skill for field operators, so listen closely as FBI agent Eric O'Neill discusses the art of going ‘gray’.
Russian spy Anna Chapman certainly isn’t the only model-agent in the history of espionage. The fashion industry and spies have made interesting bedfellows. SPYSCAPE goes backstage to see how spies have used the catwalk as a cover for more than a century of crimes and misdemeanors.
