The Devil's Cloth

About this book

Michel Pastoureaus lively study of stripes offers a unique and engaging perspective on the evolution of fashion taste and visual codes in Western culture. The Devils Cloth begins with a medieval scandal. When the first Carmelites arrived in France from the Holy Land the religious order required its members to wear striped habits prompting turmoil and denunciations in the West that lasted fifty years until the order was forced to accept a quiet solid color. The medieval eye found any surface in which a background could not be distinguished from a foreground disturbing. Thus striped clothing was relegated to those on the margins or outside the social orderjugglers and prostitutes for exampleand in medieval paintings the devil himself is often depicted wearing stripes. The West has long continued to dress its slaves and servants its crewmen and convicts in stripes. But in the last two centuries stripes have also taken on new positive meanings connoting freedom youth playfulness and pleasure. Witness the revolutionary stripes on the French and United States flags. In a wide-ranging discussion that touches on zebras awnings and pajamas augmented by illustrative plates the author shows us how stripes have become chic and even in the case of bankers pin stripes a symbol of taste and status. However make the stripes too wide and you have a gangsters suitthe devils cloth indeed!