Stripes: Where do they end? Where do they begin? Frighteningly "dreamlike and geometric" at once, the pattern creates a "disquieting, deadening, alienating world," writes Michel Pastoureau in The Devil's Cloth. Because the "hue is broken," stripes represent a "half color, a mutilated color," and though their arrangement begins as a simple visual pleasure, it quickly dissolves "into pandemonium, deflagration, and then madness." Unsurprisingly, the historical roles of stripes in fashion are not exactly crammed with smiles.

In medieval times, for instance, to be depicted wearing striped garments in text or iconography was regarded as "clearly degrading" and reserved for "the henchmen for the devil and the Antichrist," along with many other types of outcasts: heretics, fools, clowns, jugglers, butchers, hypocrites, lepers, hangmen, disloyal knights, thieves, and prostitutes, writes Michel. (Though no less compelling, the medieval costuming habits of perverts, morons, dorkwads, hoarders, dildos, mooches, and cock-blockers remain tragically unexamined.)

Stripes are also an ancient symbol of death, and the Blackfoot Indian braves "who had indisputably killed an enemy in war and taken scalps... were privileged to paint horizontal stripes on their jerkins and leggings," writes Pearl Binder in The Peacock's Tail. Moving into the realm of male criminality, the iconic American 1800s-era convict uniforms with fat, clownish stripes were stunningly cheap to produce, deflated the chance of escape, and represented "the embodiment of punishment and visibility," writes Juliet Ash in Dress Behind Bars. They were "fashioned to humiliate the wearer."

We also use striped nightclothes during sleep, an activity rendering us "fragile and pathetic," writes Michel. As early as the feudal period and continuing throughout the industrial revolution, bedding consisted of white or undyed textiles; any variants were considered obscene. While today we are free to rest among sharp bursts of color, multihued stripes against plain backgrounds bridged the intermediate decades. So did pastels. (These similarly embody a "failed color, an almost color.")

In the fall 1995 menswear collection "Sleep," Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons took on loads of stripes and got fucked. (Stripes have a tendency to do that to people.) As Holly Brubach in the New York Times Magazine wrote, the collection featured Rei's typical batches of abstract weirdness—with dazed, long-haired models, bathrobe coats, and fabric patterned by treads of basketball sneakers—and suggested "insomniac patients roaming a hospital ward." But the show's randomly assigned date coincided with an Auschwitz liberation anniversary, and reckless critics saw only Holocaust themes, with Rei's striped pajamas as reminders of death-camp uniforms. Deep shit ensued, and she soon removed them from her line.

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