Every type of emergency and rescue in one place — 4 chapters, Fire and rescue, Ambulance and paramedic, Search and rescue and the rest, with the plates and an inventory to download.
These are the uniforms of people who arrive when something has gone wrong, and who have no legal power to make anyone do anything. That absence is the design constraint. Where police dress works by carrying authority, emergency dress works by being found — by the person who needs help, by colleagues in smoke or surf, and by a driver who has to decide in half a second whether to stop.
So the family is built out of visibility and survivability rather than rank. Colour is functional here in a way it almost never is elsewhere in this taxonomy: high-visibility yellow, the red of a fire service, the red-and-yellow quartering of surf lifesaving are all specified to be seen, not to be recognised as belonging to anyone.
Four chapters. The contents are public; the plates and the inventory are for subscribers.
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You are viewing a free sample. The full collection contains 1,100 images of 4 uniform subtypes and an inventory spreadsheet with metadata. Free for personal and commercial use. No attribution required. Share individual images, never the whole collection.
Up to five plates from each of the 4 chapters, in full, free to anyone. Every one is credited to the collection that holds it and links back to the record.
Soccorritori RCP Wikimedia Commons · 12112620 · 2010-10-10 · Massimiliano Mariani · CC BY-SA 3.0Tavola spinale CRI Valentano Wikimedia Commons · 1421810 · 2006 · Mario Benvenuti (User:M7) · CC BY 2.5JUH-Reiterstaffel Sanitätsreiterstaffel JUH RV Harburg · 14740621 · 2010-08-29 · Reiterstaffel JUH RV Harburg · CC BY-SA 3.0World War I Italy Paramedic Hat 1917 Wikimedia Commons · 15312512 · 2011-05-14 · Joadl · CC BY-SA 3.0 atUS Navy 110810-N-RM525-853 Costa Rican paramedics prepare to take an injured boy to a local hospital in San Jose, Costa Rica Wikimedia Commons · 16080239 · Taken on 10 August 2011 · U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jonathen E. Davis · Public domain
Search and rescue
Flickr - Official U.S. Navy Imagery - Sailors and Seattle locals observe a Coast Guard search and rescue demonstration. Wikimedia Commons · 22649389 · 2008-04-15 03:23 · Official Navy Page from United States of America MC2 Lawrence Davis/U.S. Navy · Public domainBSAR searchers at Mount Dom Dom P3260158 self-made, Olympus mju720SW · 3824838 · 2008-03-26 · Peter Campbell · CC BY-SA 4.0Mounted search and rescue training group Irv Lichtenstein · 5083323 · 2007 · Irv Lichtenstein · CC BY-SA 4.0Rig Training Arapahoe Basin Rig Training on flickr · 6491318 · 2009-02-07 · flickr user "abkfenris" · CC BY 2.0CartecayRiverGA RiverRescueTraining Wikimedia Commons · 889776 · 2005-08-07 · Brian McInturff · CC BY-SA 3.0
Lifeguard
Deutscher Rettungsschwimmer Wikimedia Commons · 1073257 · 07.08.06 · Alien65 · CC BY-SA 2.5Lifeguard Training Wikimedia Commons · 16621 · 2002-10-01 · William R. Goodwin · Public domainLifeguard jumping into action, Ocean City, June 27 ,2007 Wikimedia Commons · 2327069 · Taken on 27 June 2007 · flickr user dbking · CC BY 2.0LifeguardsCampersSA Wikimedia Commons · 8939750 · 2009-12-24 · AlejandroLinaresGarcia · CC BY-SA 4.0Flickr - The U.S. Army - Helicopter Overwater Survival Training Helicopter Overwater Survival Training · 9456192 · 2009-08-06 12:54 · The U.S. Army · Public domain
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Hedda Maartens — MA in fashion design, then eleven years in the industry designing for people who had no say in what they wore. Now writes about prescribed dress: how a garment was made to work, and what it was made to make a person into.
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