When the Royal Navy added three blue and white stripes to its sailors' uniforms in 1857, it certainly didn't realise that an everlasting fashion classic would be born. Sailor fashion was quickly adapted by "better society" as clothing for boys and when stripes finally appeared for the first time in a collection by Coco Chanel in 1917, the so-called mariniere was suddenly high fashion and also became an absolute must-have for women. Since then, the striped look has been more or less fashionable, but has never completely disappeared from fashion.
Stripes have been back on the catwalks for a few years now. The standard blue and white of sailor shirts has long since ceased to be the only thing on the fashion runway and is now complemented by a wide variety of stripe shapes and styles: colourful layers of stripes for anarchists, fine pin stripes for purists, huge block stripes for avant-gardists - there are no limits to the imagination.