Old Fashion Dress Up and Lingo

Article of clothing terminology comprises the names of private garments and classes of garments, besides as the specialized vocabularies of the trades that have designed, manufactured, marketed and sold clothing over hundreds of years.

Wear terminology ranges from the arcane (watchet, a pale blue color name from the 16th century), and changes over time in response to fashion which in turn reflects social, artistic, and political trends.

Categories [edit]

At its broadest, article of clothing terminology may be said to include names for:

• Classes of basic garments: shirt, glaze, brim, apparel, suit, underwear, swimsuit
• Length, for skirts and dresses: micro-mini, mini, tea length, ballerina length, full length, midi, maxi
• Contemporary and historical styles of garments: corset, frock coat, t-shirt, doublet
• Parts of garments: sleeve, collar, lapel
• Styles of these: juliette sleeve, Peter Pan neckband
• Clothing details: pocket, french cuff, zipper
• Functional uses: base of operations layer, insulation layer, outer shell
• Traditional garments: cheongsam, kilt, dirndl, fustanella
• Fashions and "anti-fashions": preppy, New Look, hip-hop, rational apparel
• Fabrics: denim, wool, chiffon, velvet, satin, silk, cotton
• Fabric treatments: fabric painting, transfers, ikat, tie-dye, batik
• Fabric manipulation: pleat, tuck, assemble, smocking
• Colors and dyes: madder ruby-red, indigo, isabella
• Sewing terms: cut, hem, armscye, lining
• Patternmaking terms: sloper, toile
• Methods of manufacture: haute couture, bespoke tailoring, ready-to-article of clothing
• Retailers' terms:
  • Size ranges: Small, Medium, Large, XL (Extra Big), XXL (Double Extra Large), Junior, Misses, Petite, Plus Size, Big-and-Tall
  • Retail seasons: back-to-school, holiday, resort, seasonal
  • Departments: special occasion, sportswear, bridge manner
  • Degrees of formality: formal clothing, bridal, business casual
  • Market: high terminate, high street, ethical consumer, cutting price

Persistence [edit]

Edward VI in a cerise fur-lined gown with split hanging sleeves, a men's style of the mid-16th century

Despite the abiding introduction of new terms by way designers, wear manufacturers, and marketers, the names for several basic garment classes in English are very stable over fourth dimension. Gown, shirt/skirt, frock, and coat are all attested back to the early medieval period.

Gown (from Medieval Latin gunna) was a basic article of clothing term for hundreds of years, referring to a garment that hangs from the shoulders. In Medieval and Renaissance England gown referred to a loose outer garment worn by both men and women, sometimes short, more often ankle length, with sleeves. Past the 18th century gown had get a standard category term for a women'south dress, a meaning information technology retained until the mid-20th century. Merely in the final few decades has gown lost this full general significant in favor of dress. Today the term gown is rare except in specialized cases: bookish dress or cap and gown, evening gown, nightgown, hospital gown, and so on (see Gown).

Shirt and skirt are originally the same word, the former being the southern and the latter the northern pronunciation in early Middle English.

Coat remains a term for an overgarment, its essential meaning for the last thousand years (see Glaze).

New sources [edit]

Names for new styles or fashions in wearable are oft the deliberate inventions of fashion designers or clothing manufacturers; these include Chanel'southward Fiddling Blackness Dress (a term which has survived) and Lanvin'south robe de style (which has not). Other terms are of more than obscure origin.

Personal names [edit]

Article of clothing styles are oftentimes named later people—often with a military connection:

• The Jinnah Cap is a fur qaraqul hat named after the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
• The Garibaldi jacket or Garibaldi shirt were bright ruby woolen garments for women with blackness embroidery or complect and war machine details pop in the 1860s; they are named subsequently the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi who visited England in 1863.
• The Eisenhower jacket or "Ike" jacket is a waist-length, armed forces jacket of World War 2 origins. Called the "Jacket, Field, Wool, Thou-1944", it was deputed by and then General Dwight Eisenhower as a new field jacket for the United states of america Forces in Northern Europe. The jacket was based on the British Regular army 'Battle Dress' jacket of the aforementioned era.
• The cardigan is a knitted jacket or button-front sweater created to keep British soldiers warm in Russian winters. Information technology is named for James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, who led the Charge of the Lite Brigade in the Crimean War (1854).
• The Mao jacket is a very plain (often grayness), high-collared, shirtlike jacket customarily worn by Mao Zedong and the people of China during his regime. Its drab design and uniformity was a reaction to pre-Revolution course distinctions of wearing apparel, with elites dressing in elaborate silks, while poor laborers wore very rough clothes.
• The Nehru jacket is a uniform jacket without lapels or collars, popularized past Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent Bharat.
• The Bloomer Costume was a blazon of women'due south clothing introduced in the Antebellum menstruum, that changed the style from dresses to a more than male-blazon way, which was devised by Amelia Bloomer.
• The Wellington kick was a cavalry boot devised past the Knuckles of Wellington, originally made from leather, only now ordinarily safety.
• The Stetson hat is named afterwards the founder of the John B. Stetson Company.
• The Mackintosh is a waterproof coat made from rubberised fabric, named later its inventor Charles Macintosh.
• The Gandhi cap is a white colored sidecap made from khadi. Information technology was popularised by Mahatma Gandhi during the Indian independence movement.

Place names [edit]

Some other fertile source for wear terms is identify names, which unremarkably reverberate the origin (or supposed origin) of a fashion. Mod terms such as Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirts, and Fair Isle sweaters are the latest in a long line that stretches back to holland (linen), damask ("from Damascus"), polonaise ("in the mode of Smooth women"), basque, jersey (originally Jersey frock), Balaclava, Capri pants, mantua, and denim ("serge de Nîmes" after the metropolis).

Costume historian'south terms [edit]

Costume historians, with a "rearward-looking" view, require names for clothing styles that were not used (or needed) when the styles were actually worn. For instance, the Van Dyke collar is so-called from its appearances in 17th century portraits by Anthony van Dyck, and the Watteau pleats of the robe á la française are chosen afterwards their advent in the portraits of Antoine Watteau.

Similarly, terms may exist applied ahistorically to entire categories of garments, so that corset is practical to garments that were called stays or a pair of bodies until the introduction of the word corset in the belatedly 18th century. And clothes is now applied to any women'south garment consisting of a bodice and skirt, although for most of its history dress just meant clothing, or a complete outfit of habiliment with its advisable accessories.

Short forms [edit]

A notable tendency at the turn of the 21st century is "beautiful" short forms: camisole becomes cami, hooded sweaters or sweatshirts become hoodies, and as of 2005, curt or "shrunken" cardigans are cardies.

The much-older term shimmy for "slip" is most likely a imitation singular from chemise.

References [edit]

• Picken, Mary Brooks: The Fashion Dictionary, Funk and Wagnalls, 1957. (1973 edition ISBN 0-308-10052-2)

External links [edit]

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