Wearing patterns on television: Beware!

There are a lot of "rules" out there about what you should and shouldn't wear on television. In general, I don't like lists of rules. They rarely account for the individual, and everyone's look, style, and strengths are different.

BUT

You do have to be very careful about patterns, no matter who you are. This is not a question of whether something looks good on you (as we saw with Mary Landrieu's flowered scarf). Some patterns actually interact with the pixelization of your image as you move and create weird colors. For this reason, there are certain patterns you should avoid ever wearing on television:

Glen plaid

Houndstooth

Chevron stripes, as Linda Murkowski did on the Senate floor recently:

Maybe eventually HD television will allow these patterns to re-enter our television appearance wardrobe, but for now, restrict them to office-only days!

(Glen plaid image by Kaushik Gopal, houndstooth image by Magnus Overengen)