It is always intriguing to find coincidences between contemporary collections and art and, at times, spotting a similarity may reveal uncanny or fun connections.
There is a great example in LaDoubleJ's latest collection, Pre-Fall 23. The brand usually gets its inspirations from a rather irritating figure, the Milanese "sciura" (imagine an elegant, wealthy and insufferably snobbish lady), and caters to consumers perennially stuck in a Summer holiday mood, who think that Italy geographically consists of the Amalfi coast and Tuscany.
The brand's new collection features among floral patterns and pineapple motifs a long dress and a jumpsuit with large oblique white and brown stripes. If you know your stripes, the colour combination and the dimension of the pattern in these designs will immediately ring a bell and point at two things, the attire of Carmelites and the frescoes of the San Domenico Church in Bolzano.
We looked at the former in a previous post, remembering how the Carmelites used to wear a mantle with seven bars, four white and three brown (some say they had a symbolical meaning and hinted at the four cardinal virtues and at the three theological virtues; others, instead, that they indicated the four gospels and the Trinity).The motif represented the scorches left on the mantle of Elijah, who inspired the Carmelites' order, as he ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire.
Michel Pastoureau explains in the volume The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes and Striped Fabric that Carmelites were called,''les frères barrés,'' or barred brothers, and that in old French, this term hinted at the marks of illegitimacy.
The cause of derision in Europe as their cloaks deviated from the norm that wanted clothes to be of one colour only, the monks eventually abandoned their striped mantle for a white one (a symbol for the Virgin Mary's purity) in 1287. In 1295 Pope Boniface VIII issued a bill banning striped clothing from all religious orders.
In Bolzano's Church of San Domenico (Dominican Church) there are instead two types of characters wearing a black and white striped attire in the Giottoesque frescoes depicting the stories of Saint Nicholas.
One scene shows the three daughters of a desperate and destitute man, who are dressed in black and white oblique stripes to be initiated into prostitution. The three girls are saved by the intervention of Saint Nicholas who gives them each a golden apple. In their case, their garments with those oblique stripes indicated infamy or lust.
In the same church there are frescoes depicting musicians playing the medieval vielle, an instrument used in different contexts - from troubadour or trouvère songs to sacred conducti.
In this case, though, the musicians, being placed on a lower level compared to the angels above playing sacred music, are probably playing secular music (and they are therefore aligned with more deviant characters wearing stripes in those times, including clowns, jugglers and, well, prostitutes...).
We have so far seen in various previous posts legally dangerous stripes, playful and multi-coloured stripes, architectural stripes and dazzle patterns. Why do we have such a great connection between black/brown and white stripes in the Middle Ages and in our times?
Well, it's not because fashion-wise Carmelites, medieval prostitutes and musicians were ahead of their times (even though we'd like to think so...), but because, while in the past stripes perverted the established order and, according to Pastoureau, disturbed the medieval eye and sensibility (more accustomed to read by levels and therefore confused by stripes), nowadays, they are simply an eye-catching desirable and timeless graphic motif.
You're free to decide if you want to opt for this bold pattern, but, maybe, it's better if you avoid visiting the Dominican Church in Bolzano while wearing large white and black/brown stripes: if other tourists will look at you and at the frescoes and will start laughing, you'll know that the joke's on you.
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