Innovative design for a cause

Imagine a world where camouflage promotes peace and love instead of war. That is the vision of Seamus McGovern, creator of Love Fatigues, a clothing line that features standard camouflage design — with a twist.

“We’re trying to steal [camouflage] from the military, steal it from the urban markets and create what I’m calling love camouflage,” McGovern said.

A New Yorker and University of Massachusetts graduate, McGovern formed the idea behind Love Fatigues in 2004. While living on a small island off the coast of Madagascar, McGovern first envisioned the pattern of an image of a man and woman embracing, set against a camouflage backdrop.

Five years later, McGovern’s flash of creativity became a reality when Love Fatigues launched its image-infused camouflage clothing line. Since the line’s release, Love Fatigues has begun to establish its presence and love-focused movement throughout the world. McGovern still recalls the first time he saw a Love Fatigue camouflage shirt on the streets.

“I actually saw somebody on a beach wearing a Love Fatigues out of nowhere … and my two kids actually spotted it,” McGovern said. “It was really exciting … my kids were really excited about it, too.”

With a strong following in both the United States and France, the company is expanding its product line and operations. Originally based in New York, Love Fatigues is currently in the process of moving its manufacturing operations to Los Angeles.

But now that Love Fatigues has clothing under its belt, the company is expanding its brand to include a new social network.

The social networking site WorldLovePages.com is, like other products of Love Fatigues, a part of McGovern’s vision for a world of love and peace. Ultimately, World Love Pages is a translation site that McGovern hopes will break down the cultural and language barriers between people from different countries. McGovern operates World Love Pages from France, where he currently lives. The site allows a user from Los Angeles to see a Russian user’s profile and translates comments into English, for example.

“The idea was, what if we could take a Facebook and turn it into a translation site where everybody in the world can actually talk in sort of the same language?” McGovern said.

The newest component to the Love Fatigues brand, World Love Pages is revolutionizing the Love Fatigues brand and its movement. By allowing users to speak a universal language, World Love Pages pushes Love Fatigues one step closer to creating a unified peace movement.

“It’s a place where you can bring music, art, poetry, photography,” McGovern said. “It’s basically a place to share all sorts of different ideas in the language that you speak … [and] translate it to other languages so other people can actually understand what your thoughts are.”

As World Love Pages continues to grow, McGovern has left the future of the social network in the hands of its users.

“It’s just phenomenal what we’re beginning to do right now,” McGovern said. “With World Love Pages we’re building a foundation for free thinkers and artists. We don’t want to fish the creation of it. We want our users to build it for us.”

Regardless of the future of the World Love Pages, the goal of Love Fatigues remains the same ­­— to create a love movement driven by image-infused camouflage.

“What I would really like to do is make a social change,” McGovern said. “Everyone’s wearing camouflage, but what if they realized they had a choice … to buy camouflage that’s part military or camouflage that’s part peace.”

Beyond empowering individuals to make a choice, McGovern hopes to give meaning to camouflage and change what it represents.

“We’re really hoping to have people help us to turn this whole camouflage on its head,” McGovern said. “Turn it upside down to peace.”

Over the next couple of years, McGovern hopes his camouflage will revolutionize the face of militaries across the globe. Camouflage would become the universal uniform of a military for peace. A universal camouflage that would unite all countries into a collective military whose goal is peace.

“Camouflage would stand out differently, so anybody seeing it would know, ‘Wow, these guys are here to help; it’s not for war,’” McGovern said.

No matter where Love Fatigues’ success takes camouflage, the company has one underlining goal.

“What we want to do in success is be prolific and help the world,” McGovern said.