Kitsch

Kitsch (pronounced kich)

(1) Something though tawdry in design or appearance; an object created to appeal to popular sentiment or undiscriminating tastes, especially if cheap (and thus thought a vulgarity).

(2) Art, decorative objects and other forms of representation of dubious artistic or aesthetic value (many consider this definition too wide).

1926: From the German kitsch (literally “gaudy, trash”), from the dialectal kitschen (to coat; to smear) which in the nineteenth century was used (as a German word) in English in art criticism describe a work as “something thrown together”.  Among “progressive” critics, there was a revival in the 1930s to contrast anything thought conservative or derivative with the avant garde.  The adjective kitchy was first noted in 1965 though it may earlier have been in oral use; the noun kitchiness soon followed. Camp is sometimes used as a synonym and the two can be interchangeable but the core point of camp is that it attributes seriousness to the trivial and trivializes the serious.  Technically, the comparative is kitscher and the superlative kitschest but the more general kitschy is much more common.  The alternative spelling kitch is simply a mistake and was originally 1920s slang for “kitchen” the colloquial shortening dating from 1919.  Kitsch & kitchiness are nouns, kitschify, kitschifying & kitschified are verbs and kitschy & kitchlike are adjectives; the noun plural is kitsch (especially collectively) or kitsches.  Kitschesque is non-standard.

Kitsch can become ironic: a lava lamp in "hot dog stand" red & mustard.  Lava lamps were in the 1970s briefly fashionable as symbols of the modern but were soon re-classified kitsch.  In the twenty-first century, such was the demand that re-creations of the originals became available, bought because they were so kitsch; iconic can thus be ironic.

For something that lacks an exact definition, the concept of kitsch seems well-understood  although not all would agree on what objects are kitsch and what are not.  Nor is there always a sense about it of a self-imposed exclusionary rule; there are many who cherish objects they happily acknowledge are kitsch.  As a general principle, kitsch is used to describe art, objects or designs thought to be in poor taste or overly sentimental.  Objects condemned as kitsch are often mass-produced, clichéd, gaudy (the term “bling” might have been invented for the kitsch) or cheap imitations of something.  It can take some skill to adopt the approach but other items which can be part of the motif include rotary dial phones ("retro" can be a thing which transcends kitsch) and three ceramic ducks "flying" up the wall (although when lava lamps were in vogue, lava lamp buyers probably already thought them kitsch).  An application of physics of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, the lava lamps once so admired by stoned hippies work by exploiting differences in density, thermal expansion, and buoyancy within two immiscible fluids (ie they do not mix), the dynamics driven by a localized heat source and the construction is simple; in a variously shaped glass vessel, there is a wax-based compound (the “lava”, which typically is paraffin wax mixed with additives to adjust density and melting point), floating in a liquid (usually water or a water-based solution with salts or alcohols to achieve the desired density).  At the base of the vessel there is a source of light and heat which traditionally was an incandescent bulb, the heat a product of the inefficiency with which the energy was converted into light; when the bulb is switched on, the liquid becomes heated and as the wax absorbs some of this heat, it melts and thermally expands, density thereby decreasing to the point it’s slightly less dense than the surrounding liquid.  Buoyant force then causes the wax to rise through the liquid in blobs, randomness meaning tiny variations in surface tension and viscosity create infinitely different shapes of the rounded forms which cool as they move away from the heat source, meaning the wax contracts, increasing its density beyond that of the liquid, causing it to sink back toward the bottom.  Because it’s a closed system working on a continuous cycle, the heating & cooling repeats continuously and, component failure and material decay aside, in theory a lava lamp could run forever.

Lindsay Lohan: Prom Queen scene in Mean Girls (2004).  If rendered in precious metal and studded with diamonds a tiara is not kitsch but something which is the same design but made with anodized plastic and acrylic rhinestones certainly is.

Führerkitsch: A painting attributed to Adolf Hitler.

The Nazi regime devoted much attention to spectacle and representational architecture & art was a particular interest of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).  Hitler in his early adulthood had been a working artist, earning a modest living from his brush while living in Vienna in the years before World War I (1914-1918) and his landscapes and buildings were, if lifeless and uninspired, executed competently enough to attract buyers.  He was rejected by the academy because he could never master a depiction of the human form, his faces especially lacking, something which has always intrigued psychoanalysts, professional and amateur.  Still, while his mind was completely closed to any art of which he didn’t approve, he was genuinely knowledgeable about many schools of art and better than many he knew what was kitsch.  However, the nature of the “Führer state” meant he had to see much of it because the personality cult built around him encouraged a deluge of Hitler themed pictures, statuettes, lampshades, bedspreads, cigarette lighters and dozens of other items.  A misocapnic non-smoker, he ordered a crackdown on things like ashtrays but generally the flow of kitsch continued unabated until the demands of the wartime economy prevailed.

To the Berghof, his alpine headquarters on the Bavarian Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden, Barvaria, there were constant deliveries of things likes cushions embroidered with swastikas in which would now be called designer colors and more than one of his contemporaries in their memoirs recorded that the gifts sometimes would be accompanied by suggestive photographs and offers of marriage.  Truly that was “working towards the Führer”.  At the aesthetic level he of course didn't approve but appreciated the gesture although they seem never to have appeared in photographs of the house’s principle rooms, banished to places like the many surrounding buildings including the conservatory of Hans Wichenfeld (the chalet on which the Berghof was based).

Hitler's study in the Berghof with only matched cushions (left) and the conservatory (centre & right) with some pillowshams (embroidered with swastikas and the initials A.H.).

In the US, Life magazine in October 1939 (a few weeks after the Nazis had invaded Poland) published a lush color feature focused on Hitler’s paintings and the Berghof, the piece a curious mix of what even then were called “human-interest stories”, political commentary and artistic & architectural criticism.  One heading :“Paintings by Adolf Hitler: The Statesman Longs to Be an Artist and Helps Design His Mountain Home” illustrates the flavor but this was a time before the most awful aspects of Nazi rule were understood and Life’s editors were well-aware a significant proportion of its readership were well disposed towards Hitler’s regime.  Still, there was some wry humor in the text, assessing the Berghof as possessing the qualities of a “…combination of modern and Bavarian chalet” styles, something “awkward but interesting” while the interiors, “…designed and decorated with Hitler’s active collaboration, are the comfortable kind of rooms a man likes, furnished in simple, semi-modern, sometimes dramatic style. The furnishings are in very good taste, fashioned of rich materials and fine woods by the best craftsmen in the Reich.”  Life seemed to be most taken with the main stairway leading up from the ground floor which was judged “a striking bit of modern architecture.”  Whether or not the editors were aware Hitler thought “modern architecture” suitable only for factories, warehouses and such isn’t clear.  They also had fun with what hung on the walls, noting: “Like other Nazi leaders, Hitler likes pictures of nudes and ruins” but anyway concluded that “in a more settled Germany, Adolf Hitler might have done quite well as an interior decorator.”  There was no comment on the Führer’s pillows and cushions.

Lindsay Lohan themed pillowshams are available.

Whatever Life’s views on him as interior decorator, decades later, his architect was prepared to note the dictator’s “beginner’s mistakes” as designer.  In Erinnerungen (Memories or Reminiscences), published in English as Inside the Third Reich (1969)), Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) recalled:

“A huge picture window in the living room, famous for its size and the fact that it could be lowered, was Hitler s pride.  It offered a view of the Untersberg, Berchtesgaden, and Salzburg. However, Hitler had been inspired to situate his garage underneath this window; when the wind was unfavorable, a strong smell of gasoline penetrated into the living room.  All in all, this was a ground plan that would have been graded D by any professor at an institute of technology. On the other hand, these very clumsinesses gave the Berghof a strongly personal note. The place was still geared to the simple activities of a former weekend cottage, merely expanded to vast proportions.”

He commented also on the pillowshams: “The furniture was bogus old- German peasant style and gave the house a comfortable petit-bourgeois look.  A brass canary cage, a cactus, and a rubber plant intensified this impression.  There were swastikas on knickknacks and pillows embroidered by admiring women, combined with, say, a rising sun or a vow of "eternal loyalty."  Hitler commented to me with some embarrassment: "I know these are not beautiful things, but many of them are presents.  I shouldn't like to part with them."

The gush was also trans-Atlantic.  William George Fitz-Gerald (circa 1870-1942) was a prolific Irish journalist who wrote under the pseudonym Ignatius Phayre and the English periodical Country Life published his account of a visit to the Berchtesgaden retreat on the invitation of his “personal friend” Adolf Hitler.  The idea of Hitler having a "friend" (as the word conventionally is understood) is not plausible but that an invitation was extended might in the circumstances have been though is unexceptional.  Although when younger, Fitz-Gerald’s writings had shown some liberal instincts, by the “difficult decade” of the 1930s, experience seems to have persuaded him the world's problems were caused by democracy and the solution was an authoritarian system, headed by what he called “the long looked for leader.”  Clearly taken by his contributor’s stance, in introducing the story, Country Life’s editor called Hitler “one of the most extraordinary geniuses of the century” and noted “the Führer is fond of painting in water-colours and is a devotee of Mozart.”

Country Life, March 1936 (both Hermann Göring (1893–1946) and Werner von Blomberg (1878–1946) were then generals and not field marshals).  General Göring wearing the traditional southern German Lederhosen (leather breeches) must have been a sight worth seeing.

Substantially, the piece in Country Life also appeared in the journal Current History with the title: Holiday with Hitler: A Personal Friend Tells of a Personal Visit with Der Führer — with a Minimum of Personal Bias”.  In hindsight it may seem a challenge for a journalist, two years on from the regime’s well-publicized murders of probably hundreds of political opponents (and some unfortunate bystanders who would now be classed as “collateral damage”) in the pre-emptive strike against the so-called “Röhm putsch”, to keep bias about the Nazis to a minimum although many in his profession did exactly that, some notoriously.  It’s doubtful Fitz-Gerald visited the Obersalzberg when he claimed or that he ever met Hitler because his story is littered with minor technical errors and absurdities such as Der Führer personally welcoming him upon touching down at Berchtesgaden’s (non-existent) aerodrome or the loveliness of the cherry orchid (not a species to survive in alpine regions).  Historians have concluded the piece was assembled with a mix of plagiarism and imagination, a combination increasingly familiar since the internet encouraged its proliferation.  Still, with the author assuring his readers Hitler was really more like the English country gentlemen with which they were familiar than the frightening and ranting “messianic” figure he was so often portrayed, it’s doubtful the Germans ever considered complaining about the odd deviation from the facts and just welcomed the favourable publicity.

As a "cut & paste" working journalist used to editing details so he could sell essentially the same piece to several different publications, he inserted and deleted as required, Current History’s subscribers spared the lengthy descriptions of the Berghof’s carpets, curtains and furniture enjoyed by Country Life’s readers who were also able to learn of the food severed at der Tabellenführer, (the leader's table) the Truite saumonée à la Monseigneur Selle (salmon trout Monseigneur style) and caneton à la presse (pressed duck) both praised although in all the many accounts of life of the court circle’s life on the Obersalzberg, there no mention of the vegetarian Hitler ever having such things on the menu.

Djuna Barnes (1892–1982) in polka-dots.

Briefly, Putzi Hanfstaengl was engaged to the US author Djuna Barnes who, although she denied being predominantly lesbionic, was regarded by some contemporary critics as having written the most definitive expressions of lesbian culture since Sappho.  It was one of Hanfstaengl's wives who spoke the most succinct thumbnail sketch of Hitler's sexuality: “I am telling you Putzi, he is a neuter.”

Fitz-Gerald was though skilled at his craft and interpolated enough that was known to be true or at least plausible to paint a veneer of authenticity over the whole.  Of the guests he reported: (1) Hitler’s long-time German-American acquaintance & benefactor (when speaking of Hitler, both better words than "friend") Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstaengl (1887–1975 and a one-time friend of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) was a fine piano player (which nobody ever denied), (2) that Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) was a wine connoisseur (he entered the wine business after marrying into the Henkell family’s Wiesbaden business although his mother-in-law remained mystified, remarking of his career in government it was: “curious my most stupid son-in-law should have turned out to be the most successful” and (3) that Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) was an engaging dinner companion and a “droll raconteur” (it is true Goebbels’ cynicism and cruel wit could be amusing even to those appalled by his views, something like the way one didn’t have to agree with the press baron Lord Beaverbrook (Maxwell Aitken, 1879-1964) to enjoy his tart cleverness).  Much of the credibility was however sustained by it being so difficult for most to “check the facts” and few would have been able to find out that in the spring of 1936 when Fitz-Gerald claimed to be enjoying the Führer’s hospitality, the quaint old Haus Wachenfeld was part of a vast building site, the place being transformed into the sprawling Berghof, the whole area unliveable and far from the idyllic scene portrayed.

Führerkitsch: A painting attributed to Adolf Hitler.

Dutifully, Hitler acknowledged the many paintings which which were little more than regime propaganda although the only works for which he showed any real enthusiasm were those which truly he found beautiful.  However, he knew there was a place for the kitsch… for others.  In July 1939, while being shown around an exhibition staged in Munich called the “Day of German Art”, he complained to the curator that some German artists were not on display and after being told they were “in the cellar”, demanded to know why.  The only one with sufficient strength of character to answer was Frau Gerhardine "Gerdy" Troost (1904–2003), the widow of the Nazi’s first court architect Paul Troost (1878–1934) and one of a handful of women with whom Hitler was prepared to discuss anything substantive.  “Because it’s kitsch” she answered.  Hitler sacked the curatorial committee and appointed his court photographer (Heinrich Hoffmann (1885–1957)) to supervise the exhibition and the depictions of happy, healthy peasants and heroic nude warriors returned.  Hitler must have been satisfied with Herr Hoffman's selections because in November that year he conferred on him the honorific "professor", a title he would award about as freely as he would later create field marshals.

Kitsch: One knows it when one sees it.

What is kitsch will be obvious to some while others will remain oblivious and the disagreements will happen not only at the margins.  Although there will be sensitive souls appalled at the notion, it really is something wholly subjective and the only useful guide is probably to borrow and adapt the threshold test for obscenity coined by Justice Potter Stewart (1915–1985; associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1958-1981) in Jacobellis v Ohio (1964):

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…

Matinée de septembre (September Morn (1911)), oil on canvas by Paul Émile Chabas (1869–1937), in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (not currently on display).

What makes something defined (or re-defined) as kitsch is thus a construct of factors including artistic merit (most obviously when lacking), the price tag and the social or political circumstances of the time.  When Paul Émile showed Matinée de Septembre at the Paris Salon of 1912, it did not attract much comment, female nudes having for decades been a common sight in the nation’s galleries (although there had been a legislative crackdown on low-cost commercial products, presumably on the basis that while the “educated classes” could appreciate nudes in art, working class men ogled naked women merely for titillation).  In other words, Parisian salon-goers had seen it all before and Matinée de Septembre, while judged competently executed, was in no way compelling or exceptional.  The work may thus have been relegated to an occasional footnote in the history of art were it not for the reaction in Chicago when a reproduction appeared in the street-front window of a photography store.  Reflecting the contrasting aspirations of those Europeans who first settled in the continent, in the US there has always been a tension between Puritanism and Libertarianism and one of the distinguishing characteristics of the USSC (US Supreme Court) is that it has, over centuries, sometimes imperfectly, managed usually to interpret the constitution in a way which straddles these competing imperatives with rulings cognizant of what prevailing public opinion will accept and while the judges weren’t required to rule on the matter of Matinée de Septembre’s appearance in a shop window, the brief furore was an example of one of the country’s many moral panics.

Although at first instance a jury found the work not obscene and thus fit for public view, local politicians quickly responded and found a way to ensure such things were restricted to art galleries and museums, places less frequented by those “not of the better classes”.  The notoriety gained from becoming a succès de scandale (from the French and literally “success from scandal”) made it one of the best-known paintings in the US and, not being copyrighted, widely it was reproduced in prints, on accessories and parodied in what would now be called memes.  The popularity however meant a re-assessment of the artistic merit and many critics dismissed it as “mere kitsch” although it was in 1957 donated to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art where it has on occasion been hung as well as being loaned to overseas institutions.  The Met placed it in storage in 2014 and while that’s not unusual, whether the decision was taken because of it’s the depiction of one so obviously youthful isn’t clear.  The artist claimed his model was at the time aged 16 (thus some two years older than the star-cross’d lover in William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) Romeo and Juliet (1597) and half a decade older than the girl who appeared on the cover of Blind Faith’s one-off eponymous album (1969)) but there is now heightened sensitivity to such depictions.

Kitsch also has a history also of becoming something else.  As recently as the 1970s, tea-towels, placemats, oven mitts, tea-trays and plenty else in the West was available adorned with depictions of indigenous peoples, often as racist tropes or featuring the appropriation of culturally sensitive symbols.  These are now regarded as kitsch only historically and have been re-classified as examples variously (depending on the content) of cultural insensitivity or blatant racism.

Kitsch at work: Lava Lamps and Random Number Generation

Some may have dismissed the Lava Lamp as "kitsch" but the movement of the blobs possesses properties which have proved useful in a way their inventor could never have anticipated.  The US-based Cloudflare is a “nuts & bolts” internet company which provides various services including content delivery, DNS (Domain Name Service), domain registration and cybersecurity; in some aspects of the internet, Cloudflare’s services underpin as many as one in five websites so when Cloudflare has a problem, the world has a problem.  For many reasons, the generation of truly random numbers is essential for encryption and other purposes but to create them continuously and at scale is a challenge.  It’s a challenge even for home decorators who want a random pattern for their tiles, their difficulty being that however a large number of tiles in two or more colors are arranged, more often than not, at least one pattern will be perceived.  That doesn’t mean the tiles are not in a random arrangement, just that people’s expectation of “randomness” is a shape with no discernible pattern whereas in something like a floor laid with tiles, in a random distribution of colors, it would be normal to see patterns; they too are a product of randomness in the same way there’s no reason why if tossing a coin ten times, it cannot all ten times fall as a head.  What interior decorators want is not necessarily randomness but a depiction of randomness as it exists in the popular imagination.

Useful kitsch: Wall of Entropy, Cloudflare, San Francisco.  Had this been in an installation in a New York gallery circa 1972, it would have been called art.  

For most purposes, computers can be good enough at generating random numbers but in the field of cryptography, they’re used to create encryption keys and the concern is that what one computer can construct, another computer might be able to deconstruct because both digital devices are working in ways which are in some ways identical.  For this reason, using a machine alone has come to be regarded as a Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) simply because they are deterministic.  A True Random Number Generator (TRNG) uses something genuinely random and unpredictable and this can be as simple as the tiny movements of the mouse in a user’s hand or elaborate as a system of lasers interacting with particles.

One of Cloudflare’s devices encapsulating unpredictability (and thus randomness) is an installation of 100 lava lamps, prominently displayed on a wall in their San Francisco office.  Dubbed Cloudflare’s “Wall of Entropy”, it uses an idea proposed as long ago as 1996 which exploited the fluid movements in an array of lava lamps being truly random; as far as is known, it remains impossible to model (and thus predict) the flow.  What Cloudflare does is every few milliseconds take a photograph of the lamps, the shifts in movement converted into numeric values.  As well as the familiar electrical mechanism, the movement of the blobs is influenced by external random events such as temperature, vibration and light, the minute variations in each creating a multiplier effect which is translated into random numbers, 16,384 bits of entropy each time.

Wall of Entropy, Cloudflare, San Francisco.

The arrangement of colors which avoids any two being together, in the horizontal or vertical, was a deliberate choice rather than randomness although, there's no reason why, had the selection truly been random, this wouldn't have been the result.  Were there an infinite number of Walls of Entropy, every combination would exist including ones which avoid color paring and ones in which the colors are clustered to the extent of perfectly matching rows, colums or sides.  What Cloudflare have done in San Francisco is make the lamps conform to the popular perception of randomness and that's fine because the colors have no (thus far observed) effect on the function.  In art and for other purposes, what's truly random is sometimes modified so it conforms to the popular idea of randomness.

Houndstooth

Houndstooth (pronounced houns-tuth)

(1) A two-colour fabric pattern of broken checks (multi-color versions using the pattern do now exist and are also so-described).

(2) Fabric with a houndstooth pattern; an item of clothing made with such fabric.

(3) In botany, as Cynoglossum officinale (houndstongue, houndstooth, dog's tongue, gypsy flower (and “rats and mice” due to its smell), a herbaceous plant of the family Boraginaceae.

1936: A word, based on the appearance of the design, the pattern (in architecture, decorative art, fabric etc) is ancient but the descriptive term “houndstooth” has been in use only since 1936.  The shape is sometimes referred to as dogstooth (or dog's tooth) and in French it’s the more pleasing pied-de-poule (chicken feet), preferred also by the Italians.  In 1936 there must have been pedants who insisted it should have been “hound's tooth” because that does appear in some advertisements but in commercial use, houndstooth quickly was standardized.  The name was chosen a reference directly to a dog’s tooth, not the pattern of teeth marks left by its bite.  The construct was hounds + tooth.  Hound was from the Middle English hound, from the Old English hund, from the Proto-West Germanic hund, from the Proto-Germanic hundaz and was congnate with the West Frisian hûn, the Dutch hond, the Luxembourgish Hond, the German Hund, the German Low German Hund, the Danish hund, the Faroese hundur, the Icelandic hundur, the Norwegian Bokmål hund, the Norwegian Nynorsk hund and the Swedish hund, from the pre-Germanic ḱuntós (which may be compared with the Latvian sùnt-ene (big dog), an enlargement of the primitive Indo-European ḱwṓ (dog).  Elsewhere, the forms included the Old Irish cú (dog), the Tocharian B ku, the Lithuanian šuõ, the Armenian շուն (šun), and the Russian сука (suka)).  

In England, as late as the fourteenth century, “hound” remained the word in general use to describe most domestic canines while “dog” was used of a sub-type resembling the modern mastiff and bulldog.  By the sixteenth century, dog had displaced hound as the general word descriptor. The latter coming to be restricted to breeds used for hunting and in the same era, the word dog was adopted by several continental European languages as their word for mastiff.  Dog was from the Middle English dogge (source also of the Scots dug (dog)), from the Old English dogga & docga of uncertain origin.  Interestingly, the original sense appears to have been of a “common dog” (as opposed one well-bred), much as “cur” was later used and there’s evidence it was applied especially to stocky dogs of an unpleasing appearance.  Etymologists have pondered the origin:  It may have been a pet-form diminutive with the suffix -ga (the similar models being compare frocga (frog) & picga (pig), appended to a base dog-, or doc-(the origin and meaning of these unclear). Another possibility is Old English dox (dark, swarthy) (a la frocga from frog) while some have suggested a link to the Proto-West Germanic dugan (to be suitable), the origin of Old English dugan (to be good, worthy, useful), the English dow and the German taugen; the theory is based on the idea that it could have been a child’s epithet for dogs, used in the sense of “a good or helpful animal”.  Few support that and more are persuaded there may be some relationship with docce (stock, muscle), from the Proto-West Germanic dokkā (round mass, ball, muscle, doll), from which English gained dock (stumpy tail).  In fourteenth century England, hound (from the Old English hund) was the general word applied to all domestic canines while dog referred to some sub-types (typically those close in appearance to the modern mastiff and bulldog.  In German, the form endures as der Hund (the dog) & die Hunde (the dogs) and the houndstooth pattern is Hahnentritt.  Houndstooth is a noun; the noun plural is houndsteeth.  Strictly speaking, it may be that certain use of the plural (such as several houndstooth jackets) should be called “houndstooths” but this is an ugly word which should be avoided and no sources seem to list it as standard.  The same practice seems to have been adopted for handing the plural of cars called “Statesman”, “statesmen” seeming just an absurdity.

Although the classic black & white remains the industry staple, designer colors are now not uncommon.

In modern use in English, a “hound” seems to be thought of as a certain sort of dog, usually large, with a finely honed sense of smell and used (often in packs) for hunting and the sense development may also have been influenced by the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901-1902) by the physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930).  The best regarded of Conan Doyle’s four novels, it’s set in the gloomy fog of Dartmoor in England’s West Country and is the tale of the search for a “fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin”.  The author's name is an example of how conventions of use influence things.  He's long been referred to as “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle” or “Conan Doyle” which would imply the surname “Conan Doyle” but his surname was “Doyle” and he was baptized with the Christian names “Arthur Ignatius Conan”, the “Conan” from his godfather.  Some academic and literary libraries do list him as “Doyle” but he's now referred to almost universally as “Conan Doyle” and the name “Arthur Doyle” would be as un-associated with him as “George Shaw” would with George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950).  Conan Doyle's most famous creation was of course the detective Sherlock Holmes and he wore a houndstooth deerstalker cap.   Tooth (a hard, calcareous structure present in the mouth of many vertebrate animals, generally used for biting and chewing food) was from the Middle English tothe, toth & tooth, from the Old English tōþ (tooth), from the Proto-West Germanic tanþ, from the Proto-Germanic tanþs (tooth), from the primitive Indo-European h₃dónts (tooth) and related to tusk.

Lindsay Lohan in monochrome check jacket, Dorchester Hotel, London, June 2017 (left), Lindsay Lohan in L.A.M.B. Lambstooth Sweater, Los Angeles, April 2005 (centre) and racing driver Sir Lewis Hamilton (b 1985) in a Burberry Houndstooth ensemble, Annual FIA Prize Giving Ceremony, Baku, Azerbaijan, December 2023 (right).  The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation) is world sport's dopiest regulatory body.  Although, at a distance, a wide range of fabrics look like houndstooth, some are really simple symmetrical, monochrome checks without the distinctive pattern and where designers have varied the shape, other descriptors (and L.A.M.B. couldn’t resist “lambstooth”) are used, something which helps also with product differentiation.  Sir Lewis though, sticks to the classics.  Regarded as the most fashion conscious of the Formula One drivers of his generation, it’s clear that assiduously he studies Lohanic fashion directions.

Designers consider houndstooth part of the plaid “family”, the jagged contours of the shape the point of differentiation from most which tend towards uniform, straight lines.  Although for the archaeological record its clear the concept of the design has an ancient lineage, what’s now thought of as the “classic” black & white houndstooth was defined in the mid-nineteenth century when it began to be produced at scale in the Scottish lowlands, in parallel with the plaid most associated with the culture, the tartan (although in some aspects the “history & cultural traditions” of tartan were a bit of a commercial construct).  Technically, a houndstooth is a two tone (the term monochrome often used in the industry to convey the idea of “black & white” (a la photography) rather than being etymologically accurate) plaid in four bands, two of each color (in both the weft & warp weave), woven with the simple 2:2 twill.  One of the charms of the design is that with slight variations in size and scale, different effects can be achieved and color mixes are now not uncommon although the classic black & white remains the standard.

Houndstooth has received the imprimatur of more than one Princess of Wales: Catherine, Princess of Wales (b 1982, left) and Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997, right) in a typically daring color mix.

The history in the Lowlands is murky but it seems certain the early fabrics were woven from wool which makes sense given the importance of sheep to the economy and the early garments were utilitarian, often cloak-like outer garments for those tending the flocks.  The early term was “shepherd’s check” which became first “dogstooth” and then “houndstooth”, canine teeth something with which shepherds would have been familiar because of the threat to their animals from the predations of wild dogs.  Fabric with smaller checks could be called “puppycheck”.  Interestingly, despite its striking appearance, the houndstooth pattern remained a generic and was never adopted as a family or clan symbol, a la the tartans.  It gained a new popularity in the 1930s when photographs began to appear of members of the British royal family and various gentry wearing houndstooth jackets while hunting or riding, thus the association with wealth and privilege which so appealed to the middle class who started wearing them too.  By the time designers began to put them on the catwalks, houndstooth’s future was assured.

Actor Anya Taylor-Joy (b 1996) in ankle-length, collared houndstooth cape with matching mini-skirt by Jonathan Anderson (b 1984; creative director of Christian Dior since 2025) over a sleeveless, white, button-down vest and black, stiletto pumps, Paris Fashion Week, October, 2025.

The car is a Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit (1980-1997), the first of the SZ Series platform which would serve the line until 2003.  The Silver Spirit (and the companion LWB (long wheelbase) variant the Silver Spur (1980-2000)) was mechanically little changed from the Silver Shadow (1965-1980) but with styling updated with hints from the still controversial Camargue (1975-1986), a somewhat ungainly two-door saloon designed by Pininfarina which, as an addition to the range which included the conceptually identical Corniche (under various names available since 1966), appeared to have no purpose other than being positioned as the “world’s most expensive car” but that was apparently enough; even in the troubled 1970s, there was a demand for Veblen products.

In the closet: The ensemble awaits.

There were nice touches in the cape, a highlight of the detailing the arpeggiating used for the hem.  In sewing, the arpeggiated stitch is a technique in hand-stitching that creates an invisible and durable finish by catching only a single thread from the main fabric with each stitch.  This demands the hem be folded, turning the garment inside out allowing a hand-held needle to form small, V-shaped stitches by piercing the seam allowance and then the main fabric.  For the necessary robustness to be achieved, the stitching is kept deliberately loose (preventing pulling which would distort the line) with the finished hem pressed and steamed further to conceal the stitch-work.  Obviously labor intensive and therefore expensive to implement, it’s used in garments where the most immaculate finish is desired and although it’s now possible partially to emulate the effect using machine-stitching, the fashion houses know that for their finest, the old ways are best.

Poetry in motion: The lovely Anya Taylor-Joy on the move, illustrating the way the fashion industry cuts its capes to provide a "framing effect" for the rest of the outfit.

Amusingly, although the industry is sensitive to the issue of cultural appropriation (and especially so if matters end up in court), the term “arpeggiated” was “borrowed” from music.  In music, arpeggiate describes the playing of a chord as an arpeggio (the notes of a chord played individually instead of simultaneously, moving usually from lowest to highest but the same word is used whether notes are rising or falling).  It was from the Italian arpeggiare (to play on a harp), the construct being arpa (harp) +‎ -eggiare (a suffix from the Late Latin -izāre and used to form verbs from adjectives or nouns).  The connection comes from the harp’s sound being associated with flowing sequences of notes rather than “block sounds”.  So, the word can be understood as meaning “broken into a rhythmic or sequential pattern, note by note” and the use in sewing (as “arpeggiated stitch”) took the metaphorically from the musical term, referencing a series of short, regularly spaced diagonal or looped stitches that create a flowing, undulating pattern (ie a rising and falling wave-like progression rather than a static block).

Anya Taylor-Joy in cape, swishing around.

Capes often are spoken of as having an “equestrian look” and it’s true capes do have a long tradition on horseback, both in military and civilian use although in fashion the traditional cut of the fabric has evolved into something better thought of as a “framing effect” for what is worn beneath.  That differs from the more enveloping capes worn by those in professions as diverse as cavalry officers and nomadic sheep herders form whom a cape was there to afford protection from the elements and to act as barrier to the dust and mud which is a way of life in such professions.  On the catwalks and red carpets there’s not usually much mud thrown about (other than metaphorically when the “best & worst dressed” lists appear) and the cape is there just for the visual effect.  That effect is best understood on the move because a cape on its hanger is a lifeless thing whereas when on someone walking so it can flow, coming alive; models become expert in exploiting the billowing made possible by the “sail-like” behavior of the fabric when the fluid dynamics of air are allowed to do their stuff.  A skilled model can make a cape swish seductively. 

1969 Holden Monaro GTS 350 (left), 1972 Holden Monaro GTS 308 (centre) and 1977 Chrysler Cordoba (right).

Despite the popular perception, not all the “personal luxury” Chryslers of the era and not even all the Cordobas (1975-1983) were finished in “Rich Corinthian Leather” although until a one-off appearance in brochures for the 1975 Imperials, the Corinthian hides were exclusive to the Cordoba.  For passenger car interiors, houndstooth (rendered usually with a synthetic material) enjoyed a late mid-century spate of popularity, used for what were called generically “cloth inserts” and the use of houndstooth trended towards vehicles marketed as “sporty” whereas for luxury cars plusher fabrics like velour were preferred.  The cloth inserts were usually paired with vinyl although in some more expensive ranges they were used with leather.

Houndstooth (left), Pepita (Shepherd's Check) (centre) and Vichy Check (right).

For decades, it’s been common to refer to the optional upholstery offered by Porsche in the 1960s as “houndstooth” but according to Recaro Automotive Seating, the German concern which supplied the fabric, the correct name is “Pepita” (known also as “Shepherd’s Check”), a design built with interconnected squares.  What has happened is that “houndstooth” has for most purposes in colloquial English become a generic term, used to describe anything “houndstoothesque” and it’s an understandable trend given that not only would a close examination be required to determine which pattern appears on a fabric, unless one is well-acquainted with the differences in shape, most would be none the wiser.  Nor did Recaro use “Vichy Check” for the seats they trimmed for Porsche although that erroneous claim too is sometimes made.  Further confusing the history, when Stuttgarter Karosseriewerk Reutter (Porsche’s original supplier) started production of seats used in the Porsche 356 (1948-1965) a number of fabrics were offered including one in nylon in a similar black-and-white pattern which was neither houndstooth nor Pepita.

1967 Porsche 911S, trimmed in Recaro Pepita.

The Reutter family founded Recaro in 1963 and in December that year the first Pepita pattern fabrics were made commercially available, used on the later Porsche 356Cs, the 911 (which briefly was called the 901) & the 912.  Porsche’s best known use of the pepita fabric was on the Recaro Sportsitz (Sport seat), first displayed at the 1965 Frankfurt Motor Show and they’re a prized part of the early 911S models, the first of which were delivered in the northern summer of 1966.  At that point, the Pepita fabric became a factory option for the 911 and the last use was in the Recaro Idealsitz (Ideal seat), offered only in 1970–71 in black & white, red & beige, brown & beige and blue & green.  In a nostalgic nod, Porsche returned Pepita seats to the option list for the 911 legacy model, released in 2013 to mark the car’s 50^th anniversary although Recaro was not involved in the production.

1969 Porsche 912.  The Pepita key-fob, sun visors and dashboard trim will appeal to some.

The factory at the time didn't apply the Pepita fabric quite so liberally but the originality police seem more indulgent towards departures from specification in 912s, especially if done in a way the factory might have done it; if seen on a 911, automatically, they deduct points.  The Porsche 912 (1965-1969 & (as 912E) 1976) was essentially a four-cylinder version of the 911 with less standard equipment and the early models used a version of the air-cooled flat-four from the superseded 356 (1948-1965).  It was highly successful (initially out-selling the much more expensive, six-cylinder, 911) and production ceased only because the factory’s capacity was needed for the new 914 (1969-1976) which, being mid-engined, Porsche believed was a harbinger for its future sports cars, there being little belief the rear-engine configuration would endure into the 1980s.  However, the customer always being right, things didn’t work out that way and, still in high demand, the rear-engined 911 has already entered the second quarter of the twenty-first century.  The 912E was a single-season “stop-gap model” for the US market to provide an entry-level Porsche between the end of 914 production and the introduction of the front-engined 924 (1976-1988).  Like the four-cylinder 914s and the early 924s, the 912E used a Volkswagen engine, Porsches old 356 unit having never been made compliant with emission control regulations.  Long something of an orphan, the 912 now has a following and while there are faithful restorations, modifications are not uncommon, many with interior appointment upgraded to include those used on the more expensive 911s (though Pepita sun-visors will for most be a resto-mod too far).

Reception Chairs with Porsche Pepita-style fabric by 1600 Veloce.

While not all Porsche owners “have everything”, some presumably do so buying them a present can be a challenge.  However, there exists in the collector car business a minor collateral trade in thematically attuned peripheral pieces including models of stuff which can be larger than the original (hood ornaments, badges and such) or smaller (whole cars, go-karts etc).  Parts can also be repurposed, the best known of which are internally-damaged engines re-imagined as coffee-tables (almost always with glass tops) but there are also chairs and occasional tables.  Ideal for a collector, Porsche dealership or restoration house, specialists will trim chairs and occasional tables in the distinctive Pepita fabric, which, being black & white, might even get a tick of approval from interior decorators, a notoriously judgmental lot.  Some even offer rugs in the style but fibre floor-coverings even partly white can be tiresome to own.  For those who want a later motif, furniture has been made using the even more distinctive “Porsche Pasha” which, being jarringly asymmetric, needs the eye of an expert upholsterer for things to line-up in a pleasing way.

Matching numbers, matching houndstooth: 1970 Holden HG GTS 350 Monaro in Indy Orange with black detailing (paint combo code 567-122040) and houndstooth cloth seat inserts in Indy Orange & black (trim code 1199-10Z).  This car (VIN: 81837GJ255169; Model: HG81837; Chassis: HG16214M) is one of the most prized Monaros because the specification includes a 350 cubic inch (5.7 litre) small block Chevrolet V8 (L48) with the “McKinnon block”, paired with the four-speed manual Saginaw (variously the 2.54:1 M21 or 2.85:1 M22) gearbox.  Holden built 405 HG GTS 350s, 264 as manuals and 141 with the two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission.  “McKinnon” is a reference to the General Motors (GM) McKinnon Industries plant in St. Catharine's, Ontario where the blocks were cast; many of the the “American” cars exported to the UK, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere in the Commonwealth often came from Canada because of the lower tariff rates, a legacy of the old "Commonwealth Preference scheme", the last relic of the chimera of "Imperial Free Trade".  Despite the UK in 1973 joining the EEC (European Economic Community, the institution which ultimately became the EU (European Union), some of Detroit's Australian outposts would until 1976 retain a small export flow of cars to the UK, their relatively large size and V8 engines inhabiting a limited but lucrative niche.

Very 1970s: GM's Black & Indy Orange houndstooth fabric; in the US it was also offered in the Chevrolet Camaro.  What was it about brown & orange in the 1970s?

Introduced in 1968, the Holden Monaro was the car which triggered Australia’s brief flirtation with big (in local terms, in US nomenclature  the cars were “compact” size) coupés, a fad which would fade away by the mid 1970s.  It had been Ford which had first tested the market with a Falcon two-door hardtop (XM, 1964-1965 & XP, 1965-1966) but when the restyled model was released, it was again based on the US Falcon and the range no longer included a two-door hardtop, the wildly successful Mustang having rendered it unnecessary.  There was in the US still a two-door Falcon sedan but it was thought to have limited appeal in Australia so was never offered meaning Ford didn’t have a model comparable with the Monaro until the XA Falcon Hardtop made its debut late in 1972 although by then the brief moment had almost passed.  While the Falcon Hardtop proved successful as a race-car, sales never met expectations, compelling the factory to produce a number of promotional "special models", usually unchanged in mechanical specification but with distinctive paint schemes and "bundled options", the latter at a notional discount.

1970 Ford Mustang Grandé in New Lime Metallic with Ivy Green Corinthian Vinyl & Houndstooth Cloth trim with Houndstooth vinyl roof in green & black.

In 1969, when introducing the Mustang Grandé, Ford attempted to remove any ambiguity by using an “é” with a l'accent aigu (acute accent), indicating the pronunciation should be Grahn-day, despite the spelling not being used in any language where “grande” exists.  Introduced in 1969, the Mustang Grandé was the range’s “luxury” version and its addition to the line was a harbinger for the trend of the 1970s as high-performance was, for many reasons, put on-held.  The Grandé used a standard mechanical specification but included a long list of “convenience” and “dress-up” items and was a success; it was the spiritual ancestor of the “Ghia” versions which for decades would be the most elaborately equipped Mustangs.  Surprisingly, despite being aimed at a demographic not interested in going fast, the Grandé could be ordered with almost any engine in the catalogue, including the 428 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Super CobraJet, designed for use on drag strips and some really were built so configured; only the unique Boss 429 was not available.  A vinyl roof was standard but the rarely ordered houndstooth option cost an additional US$28.