The history of artists who employed stripes in their works goes a long way back and includes, among the others, contemporary painters such as Daniel Buren, Sean Scully, Cary Smith and David Diao.
Each of them used vertical or horizontal stripes in neutral shades or bright colours and in a varying thicknesses to create disruptions on a visual level, hint at social issues or at a sense of imprisonment.
Abstract modernist painter Diao, for example, tackled the issue of being trapped by geometry in his "Little Suprematist Prisons" (1986) series in which Constructivist elements were caged behind colourful bars.
Bold stripes appeared through the history of fashion in a wide selection of garments, from prisoners' uniforms to tailored suits. Stripes also assumed different meanings according to the times and political contexts in which they were used.
In The Devil’s Cloth: A History of Stripes and Striped Fabric, Michel Pastoureau writes about stripes being associated with the devil in the Middle Ages and with numerous disreputable characters such as jugglers and prostitutes.
Walter Van Beirendonck’s Autumn/Winter 2014 menswear collection didn't move from the negative connotations stripes are linked with, there weren't indeed any references to the diabolical associations behind this popular pattern.
The designer used stripes instead in an arty way, hinting at their metonymic quality for example: the feathered headdresses by Stephen Jones with the "No Racism" message written in English and Arabic made you instantly think about more graphic conflicts between black and white stripes in a pedestrian crossing.
At times the horizontal stripes on tailored jackets broke freely to create refracted geometrical patterns and figures, while boring striped club blazers were torn apart, deconstructed and reassembled with a series of fetish straps, turned into capes, or accessorised with a hoop-like necklace and with felt helmets.
Crocodile trainers and teeth printed along leggings (the collection was cryptically entitled "Crossed Crocodiles Growl"), face painting and tufted faces tracing the contours of scary masks on jumpers and shirts, added a tribal element to the collection.
"Too many stripes can finally drive you mad," Pastoureau states in The Devil’s Cloth. Yet by cutting and deconstructing stripes it is maybe possible to free them while keeping yourself sane.
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