the.com/houndstooth
a broken checkerboard that fooled everyone into thinking jagged teeth meant good taste
means A textile pattern of broken, jagged two-color checks shaped like four-pointed abstract shapes, often woven in black and white and used in coats, jackets, and upholstery.
from A descriptive English compound: the small notched shapes were thought to resemble a hound's pointed teeth, so the cloth was named for the dog's bite — "hound's tooth." The pattern itself is much older than the name, traced to woven woolens of the Scottish Lowlands; the related term "dogtooth" carries the same canine imagery, and in French it's known as pied-de-poule, "hen's foot," suggesting different eyes saw different animals in the same jagged weave.
- origin
- woven by Scottish shepherds in the 1800s
- the name
- pattern resembles a hound's jagged canine teeth
- old name
- called dogtooth or shepherd's check elsewhere
- dior loved it
- Christian Dior made it haute couture in 1948
- eye trick
- can shimmer and flicker on screens, defying compression
prince of wales check — traditional wool fabric pattern named after the welsh principality, popularized in 1920s-30s scottish tailoring
glen check — variation of houndstooth originating in glen urquhart, scotland, featuring larger pattern blocks