Lets face it, a lot of the trends we’ve adopted owe their allegiance to military history. Take for instance cargo jackets, aviator sunglasses, camouflage prints, and today’s topic of interest, the bomber jacket.

In fact, this is one of the few spaces in fashion where there is a seamless movement between menswear and women’s clothing.

Military uniform has been influencing fashion since the ‘60s but whereas most pieces adopted by popular culture have been a designers’ interpretation of this style, today’s spotlight falls on an unlikely contender in the fashion industry: a US military supplier.

In the early 60s, Alpha Industries was awarded a contract to supply the US Department of Defense with flight jackets and parkas known as the MA-1 and N2-B, respectively.

Within two decades, Alpha had revised their technologies to include fire resistant fabric and, as you can imagine, had become somewhat of experts in this field.

The celebrity fashion staple

Fast-forward to 2016 and this brand can be seen on runways and on the likes of Kanye West, Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Beyonce.

Not too shabby for a company that started off focusing on military-wear!

Armed and ready to look cute on the streets, celebrities seem to have embraced the real OG of bomber jackets tripling Alpha’s sales and boosting their revenues.

Although the company still supplies the military with garments, they’ve shifted a lot of their focus to consumer markets.

Ladies, this cute jacket could be yours too for KES14,000 ($140) and comes in black and army green, of course.