The title of this book sounds intriguing: could stripes really have their own history? M. Pastoureau answers this question affirmatively: their history, which he traces up to the end of the 20th century, is full of the most incredible events.

Each era generated new practices and cultural codes, constantly complicating the systems of meanings associated with stripes, both in material and symbolic terms. In the Middle Ages, striped clothing was perceived as something low-class, outrageous, or even downright diabolical.

During the Renaissance and Romanticism, "proper" stripes became widespread — symbols of festivities and freedom. Modern culture has absorbed all the practices and codes of previous eras: "diabolical" connotations (striped clothing of concentration camp prisoners) or those signaling danger (zebra crossings and other road markings); stripes associated with hygiene (bedding sets and underwear), sports (professional gear), play, and so on.

The semiology of stripes is considered by Pastoureau primarily in a social context and serves only as an approximation to an as-yet-unwritten encyclopedia. Michel Pastoureau is a French historian and medievalist, professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris.