The new Burnt Orange/3 Color Desert colorway for the Blue Force Gear Hive has met with incredulous statements about orange not being a discreet color. These people are largely missing the point. The reality with most of what people call “discreet” colors is that they are just tactical colors that have been re-purposed and called discrete. The result is that many “discreet” carry bags end up looking like, well… discreet carry bags.
The Hive doesn’t look like anything other than a fashionable sling bag. It is purpose built to hide its contents in two ways. One way is a direct method of physically obscuring the view of its contents via structure and padding. The other way is misdirection. It looks like a fashion bag and as such it is made in fashion colors. In case you haven’t noticed, bright colors and camo patterns are in right now.
The choice of a bright color (it isn’t that bright in person) is purposeful. By making a bag that stands out a little, Blue Force Gear has made a bag that looks unlike any other purpose built discreet bag. They are disrupting the pattern of discreet carry bags and the reaction to the colors they have chosen largely validates their choice. Of course it doesn’t look discreet… It isn’t supposed to!
I now have one in hand and I can say that it isn’t nearly as loud as it looks in the initial press pictures and it looks really, really cool.
Check out the Hive at Blue Force Gear.
I don’t think it’s the orange so much as the combo of orange and desert camo. Typically when you see the knockoff/fashionable stuff it’s some variant of woodland. Desert doesn’t give off a “mainstream” air in the same way that woodland does. Now if it had been orange and maybe a mid/dark grey, that would have seemed like a discreet pack.
discreet, not discrete.
Definition of DISCRETE
1
: constituting a separate entity : individually distinct
dis·creet
adjective \di-ˈskrēt\
1
: having or showing discernment or good judgment in conduct and especially in speech : prudent; especially : capable of preserving prudent silence