Givenchy: 17

Yesterday as I was browsing the sale section of Barney's online, I came across a Givenchy shirt I've been dying for! At almost half off, I had to pick it up in black. Something caught my attention about the shirt, the odd design and number written across.  Of course, I know and recognize the Madonna theme that Givenchy had seemed to be going with but...why?

I didn't really come along any information to explain the Madonna theme, other than it's just cool. While looking for the "17" information, I came across a blog of the designer himself, Riccardo Tisci, explaining the significance of  the number on his pieces. Here is a short list from his blog:

General

• Jesus traveled seventeen years for his preparation before his public ministry.  

• The prayer of the Rosary of the Virgin Mary is composed of 17 Pater and 153 Ave Maria. And the sum of the 17 first numbers gives 153.
• The Jewish law counts seventeen blessings.
• According to a passage of the Talmud, it is written that the complete Torah included initially 17 books initially.
• According to visions of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, seventeen women follow the Way of the Cross. And in the visions of the brother Joseph-Francis, the Cross measured 17 feet.
• The revelations received by Mary Jane of United States enumerate on the whole seventeen joys that known the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose greater was to be placed on the Throne of God. No one other never has been able to acquire this honor.
• The apostle James wrote his Epistle seventeen years after the crucifixion of the Jesus Christ.
• The attack missed against John-Paul II, that occurred at an anniversary date of the appearances of Fatima, would have produced at 17 hours 17.
• The seventeen liturgical gestures, rak'a, in the Islamic tradition which compose the five daily prayers. Seventeen words compose also the call to the prayer.
• Number called "antiphraxis" (interposition) by the Greeks because it is located between the numbers sixteen (square number) and eighteen (double square).
• The death of Osiris would have occurred at the 17th day of the month of Athyr according to the Egyptian mythology.
• Raoul Auclair notices that one of the appearances of the Virgin Mary expresses the number 17. It was on January 17, 1871 (1+8+7+1=17) at 17 hours, in the village of Pontmain, having 17 hamlets. This appearance, proceeding in 17 phases, occurred 17 years after the date of the blooming of the Mystery of Mary: the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. She appeared ahead 70 people, pronouncing no word, but wrote her message in gold letters on the sky of the night. This message comprised 70 signs.
• Some people believed that the Sky was divided into 17 celestial layers.
• Jâbir Ibn Hayyân, in his book "Book of the Seventy" (Kitâb al-sab'în) attaches a very great importance to the numerical series: 1, 3, 5, 8 and 28 (the sum of 1, 3, 5 and 8 giving 17), because according to him: "All, in the universe, is governed by the number 17 - the metals for example have 17 'power'" and the form of any thing in the world is 17.
• The Flood began a 17. The Ark of Noah was on the Ararat mount (altitude of 17000 feet) a 17.
• The mummy of the king Toutankammon was wrapped of 17 cloths.
• The Parthenon makes 17 columns length.
• Formerly the Chinese had a bureaucratic constitution of 17 articles.
• The Alhambra, splendid Moor palace which inspired Escher, has 17 types of mosaic (in fact all possible types).
• Henry IV celebrated his marriage a second time on December 17, 1600 in the cathedral St. John in Lyon. His wife Mary Medicis arrived with approximately 5000 Italians in 17 galleys.
• The first woman of Henry VIII had 17 children who died before to have 1 year.
• Shakespeare wrote 17 comedies (at the 17th century).
• Hamlet reigned 17 years.
• The Great Lodge of England which made the speculative Masonry was founded in 1717.
• The French revolution occurred in 1789 (8+9 = 17).
• The number 17 has a particular importance in the tradition of trade corporations that recognize 17 companions initiated by Ali, 17 owners of Muslim corporation founders initiated by Selman-i Farsi, and 17 major corporations.
• At the Quatrain 5,92 of Nostradamus it is written: "After the seat held seventeen years".
• Beethoven wrote 17 quartets. The first of Water Music of Haendel occurred on July 17, 1717 (the day of the yellow pigs!). It is in 1717 that Domenico Zipoli embarked for America (he arrived there in July). Gossec wrote a symphony to 17 parts. Titchenko wrote a concerto for violoncello and 17 wind instruments. Senfl wrote a mass in 17 parts (given to the Festival of Ambronay on October 2, 1994). Op. 54 of Mendelssohn: 17 variations for piano. Bach had an orchestra of 17 musicians during the period of Weimar, when he wrote the concerto for 2 violins BWV 1043 (France-Music, Bach and Europe, December 10, 1995). In 1895, St. Saens published 17 volumes of the work of Branch (Radio Classic, December 13, 1995, 15h30).
• There is a famous passage in Theaetetus of Plato in which it is written that Theodorus (the professor of Plato) proved the irrationality of sqrt(3), sqrt(5), ..., taking all the cases until the square root of 17, where he stopped. But we don't know the exact meaning of the Greek word (mu)(epsilon)(chi)(rho)(iota), translated by "until" by Heath: either "until... excluding", or "until... included". (An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers, Hardy/Wright, section 4.5, p 42-44).
• In the Muslim folklore, the symbolic number 17 appears especially in the legends, in particular in the 17 advices murmured to the ear of the king during his coronation and in the 17 components of the banner (Mr. Mokri, The secrets of Hamza).
• It is especially in the Shiism (and, by its influence, in the religious literature of Turks of Anatolia) that a quasi magic importance is attached to the number 17... The mystic Shiists had, from an ancient period, a veneration for the number 17; this veneration originates from the old pythagorician speculations based on the letters of the Greek alphabet... 17 represented the number of those who will be resuscitated, each of these persons having to receive one of the 17 letters of the alphabet, whose is composed the supreme name of God, which is in relation with the Arcane 17 of the Tarot.
• In Lebanon, there are officially 17 religions: 5 Islamic groups, 11 Christian groups (4 Orthodoxs, 6 Catholics, 1 Protestant) and 1 Judaic.
• For the ancient Greeks, 17 represents the number of consonants of the alphabet; it is divided in 9 (number of the dumb consonants) and in 8 (number of the semivowels or semi-consonants). These numbers were also in relation with the musical theory and the harmony of the spheres.
• Pluto is the only planet outside of the ecliptic plan; its orbit is inclined of 17. The last mission on the Moon was Apollo 17, in 1972 (17x116). The period of the revolution of Callisto, discovery to the 17th century by Galileo, around Jupiter is 17 days.
• According to some documents of the NASA, it would be necessary to cover more than 17 times the distance Earth-Moon to reduce the gravitational attraction of the Earth to a millionth of that to the surface of the Earth.
• The age of the universe is about 10^17 seconds.
• There are 17 muscles in the tongue.
• The symbol indicating the constant which would be the most famous in mathematics is the 17th letter of the original Greek alphabet, pi. The original alphabet comprised three letters that are now obsolete, one was digamma, the sixth letter.
• The selenium element [Se], of atomic number 34 (17x2) was discovered by Jons Berzelius in 1817 (1+8+1+7 = 17).
• The Japanese poetry Haiku contains 17 syllables.
• The scale of Holder is composed of 17 notes.
• The first atomic bomb, prepared by 1700 persons, was released on Hiroshima with 17 seconds of delay (newspaper of France 2 August 6, 1995 at 20 hours).
• Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948 at 17h17.
• November 17, 1972 (1972 = 17x116): return of Peron General in Argentina, after 17 years of exile.
• It was the parallel 17 which divided the North and the South of Vietnam.
• Two of the most important earthquakes in 1994 and 1995 occurred on January 17: January 17, 1994 in California (Los Angeles), and January 17, 1995 in Japan (Kobe). In both cases, the latitude was 34° (=2 x17), and the longitudes were respectively -118° and 135° (- 118 + 135 = 17).
• In India, they speak 17 languages.
• In the Great Pyramid, on the walls of one of the bedrooms of "dump" is written several marks of hieroglyphs, with the red paint. One of these marks has been translated as "year 17", and it was concluded, perhaps a little too quickly, that the Pyramid had reached this level the 17th year of the reign of the Pharaoh.
• Seventeen days separate the feast of the Presentation of Mary, November 21, of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8.
• The mass of Neptune is 17 times that of the Earth.
• The girls having 17 years old, have on average 17 square meters of skin.
• The 17 is the smallest number (integer) whose the writing in French constitutes a compound word: "dix-sept".
• The White House is located on the 17th street in Washington.
• In the Odyssey of Homere, Ulysses spent 17 days to reach the Pheacia.
• Eighth prime number, by theosophical reduction, 17 gives also 8: 1 + 7 = 8.
• Anniversary of marriage: weddings of jewellery.

To read the whole blog post and all the significance of the number, visit Riccardo's blog here.