{Stripes on Squares}

Sherlock Holmes (un)popularity

6 days ago in SoF person

Stripes on squares power matching

Inspiration...

Shapes, stripes, rectangles… they are constantly the subject of art, trying to visualize the space we live in, the objects that intersect our lives all the time. They are indeed included everywhere in our lives, just think carefully. No wonder shapes are majorly dictating the fashion world, whether in print or 3D forms. 

 

Plaid is the most common geometrical textile pattern constructed from vertical and horizontal stripes/bands, visually forming differentiated color squares. The typical green, black and blue ones – tartan – is mostly associated with the Scottish national dress, the kilt. The traditional wool material and design has been spread over the last century to many fabrics and color palettes. Much more than I associate plaid with the Scots, I see it as a Sherlock Holmes brand logo, with him wearing a plaid cape and hat. 

 

What surprises me the most is the relatively high unpopularity of this squaring colorful pattern, unless it’s Burberry linen we are talking about. I understand its problematic boldness and public exposure, yet from many conversations with women I realize that its main disadvantage appears in its geometric visual effect. The rectangles give additional weight to your body, resulting in an evidently less popular choice of dressing. Women just don’t find it sexy. 

Take notes:

My mission here is to make the tartan/plaid sample popular again. Follow these 3 rules (and break them as soon you feel comfortable with it – ‘cause that is what fashion style is all about;)):

1. Wear it on the areas of the body that are not highly sensitive to visual effects, like shirts or upper-wears: coats, capes, etc. Trousers are the last choice (therefore the most appealing to me:))

2. Choose soft colors and mini squares. Do not mix different plaids: it is not at all my style to go out with plaid, and the mixing might give you a mix of unpleasant feelings. But hey, when you’re ready, mixxxxx to the max!

3. Want to go tartan from head to toe? Oh, yes, and please combine squares with the lines. The diagonals geometrically created within the plaid structure are a fatal match for the line pattern. Do not even consider a monochrome match – it will only expose what you hate the most with the plaid. 

 

Best from Wiki :

1. Today tartan may be mostly associated with Scotland; however, the earliest evidence of tartan is found far afield from the British Isles. According to the textile historian E. J. W. Barber, the Hallstatt culture of Central Europe, which is linked with ancient Celtic populations and flourished between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, produced tartan-like textiles. Some of them were discovered in 2004, remarkably preserved, in the Hallstatt salt mines near Salzburg, Austria. Textile analysis of fabric from the Tarim mummies in Xinjiang, northwestern China has also shown it to be similar to that of the Iron Age Hallstatt culture. Tartan-like leggings were found on the "Cherchen Man", a 3,000-year-old mummy found in the Taklamakan Desert.

2. Tartan is often called plaid in North America, but in Scotland, a plaid is a tartan cloth slung over the shoulder as a kilt accessory, or a plain ordinary blanket such as one would have on a bed. 

3. The Dress Act of 1746 attempted to bring the warrior clans under government control by banning the tartan and other aspects of Gaelic culture. When the law was repealed in 1782, it was no longer ordinary Highland dress, but was adopted instead as the symbolic national dress of Scotland.

4. Tartan is made with alternating bands of coloured (pre-dyed) threads woven as both warp and weft at right angles to each other. The weft is woven in a simple twill, two over—two under the warp, advancing one thread at each pass. This forms visible diagonal lines where different colours cross, which give the appearance of new colours blended from the original ones. The resulting blocks of colour repeat vertically and horizontally in a distinctive pattern of squares and lines known as a sett.