dazzle camouflage. Dazzle was a defense mechanism for battleships in the First World War, always at risk of being torpedoed by a lurking submarine. The usual “blending in” method of camouflage wasn’t an option for a huge steel vessel that advertised its presence against an ever-changing sea and sky with bow waves and smokestacks. Dazzle camouflage flipped the idea of camouflage on its head. It was an abstract riot of squiggles and harlequin patterns—in fact, it bore enough of a resemblance to Cubist art that Picasso himself impishly tried to claim the credit.7
