Bleu Horizon
Bleu horizon (French, horizon blue), unofficial name of the light blue (bleu clair) uniform colour of the French army, introduced in November 1914 to replace the earlier dark blue tunic, madder red trousers, and bluish iron grey capote. The light blue fabric was to be woven of 35 % white, 15 % indigo and 50 % light blue thread.
Our »horizon blue« mixture of five parts PRIMAcryl 13.101 »Titanium White«, two parts 13.431 »Indigo«, and 0.8 parts 13.792 »Ivory Black«, which came out a little lighter than RAL 5014 »Pigeon Blue«, compared to Revell 361.50 »Light Blue« and Humbrol Authentic Colour MC9 »Sky Blue«; see our tutorial “How to Mix Historic Colours: Bleu Clair (Bleu Horizon) – Horizon Blue.”
French production of light blue fabrics fell far short of the army‘s requirements, which is why large quantities of ash gray, light blue and blue gray fabrics had to be imported from England, Spain and the USA in 1915. As a result, the colour of uniforms varied greatly, until enough light blue uniforms of French production became available in the spring of 1916.