Ah, but as threads evolve people take interest in other facets of it, such as where to find said rare thing (non-plaid shirt in this case).
I can follow the thread nicely. In this case, the thread was plaid and people wanted to know where the plain thread was, so I provided an obligatory link to some plain flannel threads.
Don’t get all plaid on me.
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I can not say that this is the real reason, but by breaking up a large area of a single color, plaids make a somewhat effective camouflage especially towards animals that do not perceive color particularly well.
I think the main reason that flannel shirts are usually plaid is that it breaks up the visual field. Most flannel, especially the inexpensive variety, does not wear very attractively. And when you have a solid field all you see is the uneven wear. You can get very expensive flannel that will keep looking good as a solid field, but it is very expensive, and assumes one will care for it very carefully.
FYI: it was Portugal that came up with combing the cloth to create the flannel nap. The Germans had made great advancement in the area of textile manufacturing and they realized they could no longer compete head-to-head.
Lamia, I have no evidence to support this, but it is my presumption that school uniforms were derived from Catholic school uniforms, and Japanese school uniforms were patterned to match Western styles, which were already established tradition.
Of course anyone with actual knowledge would be greatly appreciated.
Flannels were also often outdoor work shirts, and the plaid makes pine tar dirt and other stains harder to see.
Brilliant! I must have this!
I always presumed that it was because wild flanns are usually plaid, and so are the shirts made from their skins.
I was surfing earlier today, and I found a site with a lot of flannel prints. Naturally I thought of this thread.
Wow - four tartans for the price of one!
I really, really want a shirt made of the little pink pigs material. Seriously.
Plaid is a relatively interesting pattern which can relatively easily be made by weaving pre-dyed thread. In fact, stripes or plaid (which is just what you get when you have stripes in both directions) are the only patterns at all that you can get out of the simplest weaving processes.
The relevant questions then become, first, why is it desired for flannels to be patterned at all, and second, why woven patterns, rather than printed ones, are desired for flannels specifically. To the first, it’s probably a combination of identifiabilty and not showing stains, as others have mentioned, and to the second, flannels tend to get more wear than (say) dress shirts, and a pattern printed on the surface will wear out quicker than one woven in.