How a Breton top gives anyone a bit of an edge
Striped tops have become a wardrobe staple for many of us in recent years, but no matter how ubiquitous they become, they always make us think of a few famous stripes wearers.
Funnily enough, despite stripes being fairly commonplace now, there’s always something about a fictional character who rocks a stripe. They tend towards the unorthodox and rebellious. In Medieval Europe a stripe was a symbol of disorder and also difference, worn only by societal outcasts such as lepers, hangmen and clowns. So perhaps that’s one reason why characters who are a little ‘outside’ the bounds of normal are often portrayed in stripes. That, and the fact that we all know they just look cool, of course.
Here are a few characters from fiction, film and television, who must have earned their stripes in the stripes-wearing stakes.
Dennis the Menace
Dennis’s stripes have a long history. When he was first drawn in 1951 he had plain clothes and just a striped tie. Just a few months later the black-and-white tie became a black-and-white jumper and only a few months after that did the jumper become the signature black and red Dennis is famous for.
Pippi Longstocking
Astrid Lindgren’s curious, kind and superhumanly strong nine year old character, Pippi Longstocking has become sort of synonymous with stripes, though we remember her most for her knee-length, mismatched stripy socks.
Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street
Rocking a stripe in completely opposite ways, Ernie’s stripes are horizontal like his big wide smile, while Bert’s are vertical, like his long face. But they complement each other perfectly.
Where’s Wally?
Known for his red-and-white-striped jumper, as well as his red-and-white beanie and round specs, Wally is drawn by Martin Handford, usually tiny and surrounded by other red-and-white-striped things so as to make finding Wally trickier.
The Cat in the Hat
Also sporting red and white stripes but far more ostentatious is Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat, a six-foot-tall cat wearing a red-and-white-striped top hat. As if a massive, rhyming cat with a paunch might otherwise go unobserved...
Bee from Ant and Bee
Another character from children’s fiction who must be mentioned for their stripes is Angela Banner’s Bee from the Ant and Bee books. Although we’re not sure whether or not Bee counts as rocking a stripe, since he is stark naked and his stripes are all natural. Does that make him <more> stripy for being striped to his very core? Or less stripy because he didn’t choose his stripes? These are the sorts of big questions we are unafraid to ask here at The Simple Things.
The chaps from O Brother Where Art Thou?
Literally rocking a stripe are Ulysses, Delmar and Pete, who escape in their prison stripes from a chain gang, head off in search of buried treasure and have an accidental hit record as The Soggy Bottom Boys. There’s something about those stripy prison slacks that looks a bit cooler in O Brother Where Art Thou’s faded sepia tones, too.
Betelgeuse
In his vertical black and white striped suit there’s no mistaking Tim Burton’s obnoxious poltergeist. He might not have got away with that outfit in life, but he certainly cuts a dash in those stripes now he’s dead. Which just goes to show how a stripe really can lift any outfit.
You can read more about the stripy Breton top in our Wearing Well series on page 83 of the May issue.
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