Houndstooth - Imprint (NYC)

Chung
The late Alexander McQueen opened his Fall 2009 collection with 1940s
silhouette dress suits, nipped at the waist and composed with a flared skirt in
houndstooth wool (See fig. 9). McQueen created a stage for symbolizing the sudden
crash of luxury exuberance in 2009. The clothes he sent out parodied the couture
designs of the last century, spoofing Dior’s New Look and Givenchy’s little black
dress. This referencing of houndstooth as a fabric pattern, a symbol of English
propriety, an icon of luxury, and finally of itself calls to mind a key thought by
Caroline Evans, “We are not fixed in the present but constantly thinking forwards
and projecting backwards, demonstrating a kind of consciousness and self-­‐scrutiny
that has been identified as intrinsic to modernity…” 22
Postmodernism shared and played with the scale and shape of the
houndstooth symbol. No longer restricted to only a woven textile in wool, the
houndstooth-­‐check is now applied as a print on a range of fabrics and in various
colors. The appeal has gone beyond fashion and textiles and into the world of three
dimensional product designs. 23 While the pattern is still used in small scale for more
somber applications such as men’s tailoring, the blown up, large-­‐scale, black and
white houndstooth-­‐check recently become a fashion statement. Fashion designers
such as Yohji Yamamoto created an entire collection of houndstooth-­‐check
Edwardian suits for his Fall 2003 collection, paying homage to Christian Dior (See
fig.10). 24 Marc by Marc Jacobs Fall 2008, ready-­‐to-­‐wear collection reminisced about
the 1980s, with large houndstooth-­‐check prints on colorfully bright skirts, a banana-­‐
yellow sweatshirt dress, bright pink bags, and strappy ankle boots (See fig. 11). The
pink houndstooth-­‐check dress with a stand-­‐up collar achieved a new playfulness
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