The Classic Style of Stripes

Did you know there are rules about stripes?

I discovered this when I learned that Ralph Lauren's headquarters in New York trains its employees in The Art of the Stripe. Yes, newbie RLers have to attend Stripe Class, according to someone I know who did it.

Apparently it's quite difficult. Apparently there are huge differences in 'styles' of stripes. There are awning stripes, and deckchair stripes, and French Breton t-shirt stripes, and couture ballgown stripes (think Audrey Hepburn in her black and white gown in My Fair Lady), and of course ticking stripes. There are thin, elegant stripes and bold, wide stripes, and stripes that vary in size – like those beautiful French canvas fabrics you sometimes see in Provence or Australia, made by Les Toiles de Soileil.

There are so many different stripes, and so many ways to do them, that Ralph Lauren has a 'Stripe Manual', according to this same friend. (Could be a RL urban myth. But sounds like it might be true.)

Author Maggie Alderson is so fascinated with stripes that she once did a post about them in her Good Weekend column. It had a huge response. People still remember it. She spoke about "the precise ratio between stripes", having measured many of her stripey clothes to see if there was some kind of formula. Some stripes, she found, were of equal width, meaning the gap between the stripe and the space was of equal width. Others had a narrow band between the stripes. Some stripes were 13 millimetres wide while others were five millimetre. After much tape measuring and collecting of data, she still couldn't ascertain a formula for the perfect stripe.

Confusing, isn't it?

No wonder there are Stripe Classes for the uneducated among us.

Here are some favourite (stripey) photographs from photo shoots over the past few years...