Sharkskin

Sharkskin is a suiting cloth woven as a 2/2 twill with single threads of two colors alternating in both warp and weft, the finest possible color order. The one-and-one alternation breaks the colors into a tiny step pattern that reads at distance as a smooth, iridescent solid, shifting between its two tones as the light moves. Woven with white against grey or blue, it became the sheened suit cloth of the 1950s and 60s, equal parts boardroom and Rat Pack. The same construction at two-and-two gives the shepherd texture, and at four-and-four, houndstooth.