1st place in Derby #286: Escher-esque, with 403 votes!

Etch this moment into your mind, folks: You're going to want to remember where you were when you first saw the "Ptero/Bronto" fabric pattern. This instant classic will be featured on handbags, napkins, and shirts for generations to come, and it all started here. Makes you wonder about the origins of some other famous patterns…

HOUNDSTOOTH was invented in approximately 10,010 B.C., when a very stylish hunter-gatherer man was attacked by his hounds, leaving him with a scarred torso of interlocking shapes. The man ate the hounds for their impertinence, but their pattern lives on to this day.

PLAID was invented in the Scottish highlands of Seattle in 1991. Highland Scottish Seattleites wore distinctive variations of plaid to distinguish their clans, and to express which local band they were most into.

GINGHAM was invented by a grandmother in 1943 as a way to sear into her grandchildren's memory the vivid image of a bright red, checkered tablecloth that would stick with them long after her death.

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