A pattern of broken checks with pointed corners, often seen in contrasting light and dark colors.
Houndstooth is a woven check before it is a print. The Museum at FIT’s menswear glossary describes a pointed check made with yarns of contrasting colors in groups of four in both warp and weft. Première Vision gives the classic construction: a 2/2 twill, with warp and weft each alternating four black and four white yarns, giving a pattern on a 45-degree diagonal. It also gives shepherd’s check and pied de puce as names for it.
The Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus notes that the pattern most commonly appears in woven fabric, but a print can imitate it. The V&A holds both: hound’s-tooth check wool trousers in a 1989 Yves Saint Laurent suit, and printed checks on a 1988 Christian Lacroix silk grosgrain suit and a 2011 Alexander McQueen gown. On a swatch, the test is whether the check is in the yarns or on the surface.
In job listings
Première Vision files houndstooth among suiting motifs, so it sits with tailoring roles: tailoring designers, who select and develop cloth with fabric teams and suppliers, and the sample tailors and alterations specialists who cut, sew and fit it. See current tailoring roles.
