The pattern history books called the devil's cloth and why we've been wearing it ever since
It is one of fashion's most satisfying reversals. The stripe today synonymous with the effortless ease of a beach resort in St Tropez, the borrowed-from-the-sea cool of the French woman's uniform, the quiet confidence of a woman who has dressed for her life rather than for a trend was once considered the most disreputable pattern a person could wear.
"Stripes are a part of our brand DNA and one of our signatures, mostly because they're classic, easy to use, and so universally loved," says Danielle Windsor, founder and designer of YAITTE. It is a statement that carries the full weight of the stripe's extraordinary journey from medieval mark of shame to the most enduring motif in the modern wardrobe.
The devil's cloth
The stripe has not always been held in such high esteem. In medieval Europe, it was the pattern of the condemned. Preserved documentation from the 12th and 13th centuries shows that striped clothing was considered shameful, degrading and downright diabolical worn by executioners and prostitutes, by circus performers, jesters, lepers, heretics and illegitimate children. The medieval eye found the stripe fundamentally disturbing: a surface on which no clear background could be distinguished from foreground. To be dressed in stripes was to declare yourself an outsider, someone who existed between the lines of respectable society.
In Germanic customary law and the sumptuary laws of southern Europe, striped clothing was imposed on the condemned a visible sign indicating deviation, ensuring those who practiced disreputable trades could not be confused with honest citizens. The pattern even acquired a name: the devil's cloth. In medieval paintings, the devil himself is frequently depicted wearing stripes.
A French cobbler, according to historical record, was sentenced to death simply for being caught in striped clothing. The pattern carried that much weight.
The stripe goes to sea
The rehabilitation of the stripe began not in a couture atelier but on the decks of the French Navy. On 27 March 1858, an official decree introduced the blue-and-white marinière to the French Navy's uniform: twenty-one white stripes, each twice as wide as the twenty indigo blue stripes. The number twenty-one is said to correspond to each of Napoleon's naval victories, though the true reason was rather more practical. The characteristic bands of colour made it easier to spot a sailor who had fallen overboard. The stripe, once a mark of the outcast, became a lifeline.
The shirts had to have 21 white stripes (each 20mm wide) and 20 or 21 indigo blue stripes (each 10mm wide) on the front and back, with 15 white stripes and 14 or 15 blue stripes on the three-quarter length sleeves cut short to avoid snagging on rigging. These were not fashion specifications. They were the precise engineering of a working garment, designed for a body in motion on open water.
The pattern still carried echoes of its old associations officers who had toiled through the ranks in their blue and white stripes, rather than graduating from naval academies, were labelled by other officers as "zebras." But the stripe was finding new ground. As sailors took shore leave and brought their uniforms into civilian life, the marinière crossed from the ship to the street.
Coco Chanel and the second revolution
The stripe's true transformation came, as so much else in modern fashion did, through Coco Chanel. During the First World War, Chanel was taking seaside holidays on the Normandy coast and found herself inspired by the local sailors' uniforms. From her boutique in Deauville, she launched the "Navy Style" — a short marinière that helped launch a sexual revolution, as French women tore off the heavily corseted fashions of the time and began to adopt the casual striped top.
Chanel's 'garçonne' look borrowed from the marinière to introduce a gender-neutral image of female independence and freedom — her practical, jersey-knit creations soon became the epitome of urban chic, an excellent example of trickle-up fashion, where trends from the working class are adopted by the affluent. The stripe had completed its inversion: once worn only by those society wished to mark and exclude, it was now the chosen uniform of the most sophisticated woman in France.
The icons followed. In the 1940s, the marinière was worn by John Wayne, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Brigitte Bardot and Marcel Marceau. In 1960, Jean Seberg wore it in Breathless. In 1966, Yves Saint Laurent introduced it in his "Sailor" collection. Jean-Paul Gaultier made it the centrepiece of his 1983 "Toy Boy" collection — and later the image on his iconic "Le Mâle" fragrance bottle. The stripe had become, definitively, the pattern of the free.
The stripe and the sea – why the pattern endures
There is a reason that the stripe, of all patterns, became the visual shorthand for the Mediterranean, for coastal living, for the ease of a life partly lived near water. It carries the memory of the sea in its structure. The horizon line, the alternation of wave and sky, the rhythm of something that does not need to hurry to be beautiful.
It is also, uniquely, a pattern that belongs to no single season, no trend, no specific era. The stripe worn by Brigitte Bardot in Saint-Tropez in 1956 is recognisably the same stripe worn today. It has passed through couture houses and beach resorts, through counterculture movements and conservative wardrobes, through every decade of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, without ever becoming dated. It is, in the truest sense, a timeless pattern not because it refuses to change, but because it contains its own history wherever it goes.
At YAITTE, the stripe is the brand's signature, its shorthand, its most immediate expression of everything the label stands for: classic without being predictable, effortless, rooted in the Mediterranean world that shaped the brand's entire vision.
The BUOY shirt - YAITTE's most celebrated piece, noted by Vogue and worn by those who know carries that history in every stripe. From the French Navy's decree of 1858 to the ateliers of Europe where it is made today, the pattern has travelled a remarkable distance. It has been the mark of the condemned and the uniform of the free. It has dressed sailors and artists, rebels and icons.
It has earned, without question, its place in your wardrobe.
The Stripe at Home
The same quality that makes the stripe so enduring on the body its rhythm, its refusal to date, its ability to carry both structure and ease simultaneously is what makes it one of the most powerful tools in interior design. Stripes bring order and structure to a space and have the ability to redirect the eye. When incorporated into an interior design scheme, they inject a dose of understated elegance and sophistication.
This is not a coincidence. The stripe has always moved between the body and the room with unusual fluency appearing on the uniforms of sailors and the upholstery of their ships, on the awnings of Mediterranean cafés and the linen worn by the women beneath them. It is perhaps the only pattern that feels equally at home in a wardrobe and on a wall.
“I have always drawn inspiration from interiors as much as from fashion,” says Danielle Windsor. “The stripe exists across both worlds with complete confidence. When I see it on an armchair or a curtain, I feel the same thing I feel when I'm designing a YAITTE shirt — that this is a pattern that knows exactly what it is.”
The London design world has produced some of the most considered contemporary interpretations of the stripe in interiors. Buchanan Studio's cult Studio Chair has been widely regarded as a cult piece since it first launched in 2021 and it is no coincidence that the studio chose the stripe as its signature.
Inspired by the soft geometric shapes and fluid forms of 1970s furniture, the Studio Chair is upholstered in a classic stripe pattern designed especially for the piece, screen printed in London onto heavyweight 100% Belgian linen sourced from a mill that has been weaving flax to the highest standards for generations.
The Indigo colourway a deep, considered navy carries the same nautical intelligence as the original marinière, translated into something entirely domestic and entirely modern.
Colours of Arley has amassed a cult following since its founding in 2022, built around a single, clarifying question that founder Louisa Tratalos asks every client at the beginning of a project: "What is the identity of your stripe?" The premise is elegant: customers choose one of three stripe widths - skinny, midi, or grand in two of over 180 colours, creating a bespoke fabric that is entirely their own. From recycled linen-look for drapery to recycled weave for upholstery, every piece is printed to order, meaning no waste and no compromise. The studio has attracted respected interior designers alongside young creatives who want something bespoke without spending thousands proof that the stripe, like the best fashion, is genuinely democratic in its possibilities.
“What is the identity of your stripe?” is, in many ways, the same question YAITTE has been answering since 2017 in navy and white, in warm ochre, in the particular indigo that carries the memory of the sea. The question is not about the pattern. It is about who you are when you choose it.
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YAITTE: elevated fashion, consciously put together. Beautifully crafted, high-quality collections that transcend fleeting trends, allowing you to build a sophisticated and versatile wardrobe that stands the test of time.