Houndstooth

For the plant used commonly known as Houndstooth, see Cynoglossum officinale.

Houndstooth pattern

Weaving a small-scale houndstooth check in a 2:2 twill

Houndstooth, houndstooth check or hound's tooth (and similar spellings), also known as dogstooth, dogtooth or dog's tooth, is a duotone textile pattern characterized by broken checks or abstract four-pointed shapes, often in black and white, although other colours are used. The classic houndstooth pattern is an example of a tessellation.

A smaller scale version of the pattern can be referred to as puppytooth.

Design and history

Houndstooth checks originated in woven wool cloth of the Scottish Lowlands, but are now used in many other materials. The traditional houndstooth check is made with alternating bands of four dark and four light threads in both warp and weft/filling woven in a simple 2:2 twill, two over - two under the warp, advancing one thread each pass. In an early reference to houndstooth, De Pinna, a New York City based men's and women's high end clothier founded in 1885, included houndstooth checks along with gun club checks and Scotch plaids as part of its 1933 spring men's suits collection.

Examples of use

Houndstooth cloth men's blazer by Lanvin.

The Australian department store David Jones uses a houndstooth pattern as part of its corporate logo. The branding — a black-on-white houndstooth pattern — is one of the most recognised corporate identities in Australia. A government sponsored panel judged it in 2006 as one of Australia's top ten favourite trade marks. The origin of this motif is due to the store founder's intention not to use the name on its packaging; the store would be so well known that everyone should recognise it simply by this motif.^{[citation needed]}

Houndstooth is the pattern on University of Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's hat. Fans wear the patterned hat and other merchandise with the pattern. However, it is not a part of their official colors. It is also the pattern of an "awareness" ribbon memorializing victims and devastation caused by a tornado that struck the University of Alabama's hometown of Tuscaloosa in April 2011 and depicted (as of Nov. 2011) on the school's football field.

Yedi Houseware designed a line of travel mugs that features a large-scale graphic print of the houndstooth pattern in several colors.

Houndstooth is commonly seen today throughout the culinary arts on chefs' pants, as the pattern hides dirt smudges and food particles.