Plaid Week 2010 is the 2nd annual weeklong celebration of plaid. Now that Plaid Week has reached international phenomena status (just go with it) we want to see how you are celebrating. Send us your photos and stories from Plaid Week 2010 and we will post them.

Please send your photos to david@plaidweek.com. We are looking forward to hear from you.

Happy Plaid Week!!!!!

In 1957 a group of Hepcats, Hipsters, and Barn Burners started throwing exclusive parties at the Chateau Marmont, dubbed The Great Plaid Parties. Besides knowing the right people one had to be wearing plaid to be allowed in. As word spread these parties quickly became a hot spot for Hollywood’s social elite. It is rumored that Lana Turner was once denied admission for not wearing plaid.

Life reporter John Graham, was the only reporter ever allowed behind the velvet rope. In the October 1957 of Life he published a piece that both revealed the secret happenings of these soirees and ended them. What happened at these parties had long been the subject of much speculation. Louie Armstrong and Sammy Davis Jr. would often share the stage as James Dean, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Stack, Ingrid Bergman, and Anthony Perkins took to the dance floor. The Great Plaid Parties were where Henry Fonda and Afdera Franchetti first met.

In 1957 plaid may have been accepted among the Hip it was a different story in Middle America where it was still thought of it as the fabric of a counter culture movement; outlaw fashion. Until Graham’s piece the identities of the attendees had been secret protecting them from the scrutiny that awaited. In October the backlash began; many studios threatened to terminate the contracts of their stars unless the Great Plaid Parties were disbanded. Today all that remains are a few photographs and the memories of those few who were there. Luck for us we live in a time when plaid is honored in a week long celebration.

Images via: Black Watch

For years the MLB has tried to keep plaid out of the sport. Many team uniforms are pinstriped and fields are mowed in striped, checkered and argyle patterns, but why not plaid? The answer… bagpipes. Bagpipes an instrument synonymous with plaid could have been the official instrument of Baseball. All of your favorite tunes, like “charge,” “take me out to the ball game” and “we will rock you” were all originally played on the bagpipes until 1921.

The league’s first commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis (commissioner 1921-1944) had a deep hatred of bagpipes. Landis’s parents wanted nothing more for their son to grow up and travel the country with circus playing the bagpipes. Kenesaw Landis had a different set of aspirations Landis wanted to be a successful judge. When Landis dropped out of Logansport High School to pursue a career in law he also dropped his bagpipes like a bad habit. From that day on Landis set swore off bagpipes and anything that reminded him of them. Landis went on to have a successful law career prior to baseball.

When Landis became commissioner his first order of business was to eradicate bagpipes and plaid from baseball. As part of this uniforms could not be plaid and fields could not have the appearance of plaid.

James I, king of Scotland was born

The Battle of Ravenna took place

Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo Buonarroti, is exhibited to the public for the first time.

This means somewhere in Scotland there may be a closet with a plaid shirt from 1512 hanging in it and you thought that shirt from college was old.