>

I’d say the shirt’s topography depends on when it was last ironed
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if we're interpreting the stripes on striped clothes as 3D objects, how do you know they represent cylinders? >

I mean, we didn't know the shape of their cross-section for certain until polka dot shirts. It's only now that we're able to tell that they are cylinders. I'm rather curious to know the cross-section of plaid, but that technology is probably a long way off yet. >

I think it's pretty obvious that plaid is a four-dimensional tesseract. >

Guys, who invited the mathematicians? >

Someone called their number. >

Oh yeah, well tell math that they need to solve their own problems >

I'd be interested to see if the dots on the front and back of the shirt line up. >

If the dots are true circles (and if the stripe is a cylinder), then the stripe is perpendicular to the plane of the shirt.  Therefore the front and back dots would line up.
However, if the dots are ellipses, that means the stripe intersects the plane of the shirt at a non-perpendicular angle.  So the dots on the back would not necessarily line up with the front.
Simples. >

Are we positive a striped shirts stripes aren’t cylindrical in the 3rd dimension? >

Topologically* the entire shirt has more in common with a triple torus.