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Bishop sleeves
Fashion writers are all in their 20s and think
there have been enormous changes in the last 10 years. Sex and the City? We’ve
soooo grown up since then! So who can blame them for getting their terminology
a bit garbled from time to time?
A fascinator is now a tiny decoration worn on the side of the head with flowers, net, feathers, antennae,
sometimes a saucer. A fascinator used to be a large, very light, lacy, fleecy scarf to go over the head in the evening (because one doesn’t wear a hat in the
evening).
ankle-biter
trousers for 7/8 trousers Times May 9 09
7/8 trousers were a brief, ankle-skimming fashion. Ankle-biters are children.
bishop sleeves came back briefly in
2006, but writers called them “bell” sleeves. Bell sleeves are flared (like a
bell); bishop sleeves are gathered at the wrist like a Victorian bishop’s surplice. (They went again in 2007.)
crochet knit Fashion writers constantly refer to
something called “crochet knit”, meaning knitting with holes in. The Evening
Standard calls cutwork “crochet detail” May 3, 2007. You knit with two needles,
you crochet with a hook, and you can produce a lacey fabric with either
technique. Perhaps they mean “knitted lace”.
dust
coat, duster coat, car coat Why did a lady’s dust coat (long,
shapeless, invented to keep the dust off clothes in early 20th
century open cars) become a duster coat – still waistless but the length of or
just longer than your skirt? A similar coat that stops at the hips was called acar coat. There’s no more need to keep out dust or restrict them to in-car
wear. And they’re never made out of dusters.
Knit (noun) is a word only used by
fashion writers. (It’s cold – I’ll put on a knit. That’s a nice knit you’re
wearing.) They used to write “knitteds” but people didn’t say that either.
Leg o’mutton sleeves were tight at
the wrist and very full on the shoulder and upper arm. That’s what they were
called, not “mutton” sleeves as recently.
saucer hat for pillbox hat Times Feb 6 2009 Pillbox
hats as worn by Jacky Kennedy are small and cylindrical like the cardboard
boxes chemists used to put your pills in.
She kept her broken nylons up by using aspirins to
fit through the holes in her suspender belt. Ian Jack Guardian Aug 5 06 It was the
suspenders that had bust – the button had fallen off. If this happened you
could use an aspirin or a threepenny bit instead of the button. Suspender belts
didn’t have holes in them but little metal attachments that the button slotted
into. Hadley Freeman thinks you have to unhitch the stockings to go to the loo.
Not so, Hadley – the suspenders go under the knickers.
shell suit This is now (2006) code
for the chav wardrobe. Vicky Pollard wears a fluorescent pink nylon zip-up top
– it’s horrible, but it’s not an 80s shell suit. They had an inner and outer
nylon shell and were pink/jade or purple/grey. Those things Vicky wears are
velour track suits.
Tea dresses are now the kind of
dresses 30s women would have worn at garden and tea parties. “It makes no difference
whether the tea be formal or informal—one is expected to wear one's prettiest
and most becoming frock. In summer, one wears delicate, dainty frocks of light,
gay-colored materials.” 1926
The “tulip skirts” revived in 2005
were actually puffball skirts and looked nothing like tulips. They sorted
themselves out the following year (2006),
but nobody wore them except possibly Peaches Geldof (2007). Puffball
skirts were mutedly mooted in 2008, but were called bubble skirts.
Peg top
The Guardian
thinks cutoff wide trousers are called Peg Legs May 08. Fashion writers were talking about the “peg leg challenge”. They
meant peg-top trousers, which we all wore in the early 80s and lived to tell
the tale. (A peg leg is a wooden leg.) They were still talking about “peg leg”
trousers in 2009, but without such revulsion. “Normal trousers are not
coming back any time soon, we’re afraid. After the peg, it’s the harem pant
next.” Guardian October 18 08 By
“normal trousers” they mean hipsters, which have been around so long they’ve
never seen any other kind. Carrot trousers are the same shape as peg-tops, ie they're carrot-shaped. But they're not carrot-top trousers, as in the Jewish Chronicle June 28 10. Carrot tops are green and feathery. And people are wearing harem trousers in public without being jeered at.
The Independent Aug 1 05 thinks a
pageboy haircut (Purdey) is so-called because worn by pageboys at weddings. In
the 20s when the haircut first appeared it was modelled on the hairdos worn bymedieval pages.
This season your hair has to be high
and full and styled into a bun like a bread roll. Observer February 8, 2009. A
bun is a bread roll. Are they thinking of the cottage-loaf hairdo briefly
fashionable circa 1966? It was based on a kind of bread that has long since
vanished from the in-store bakery.
wing collars were small, stand-up and
starched and sported by Prime Minister William Gladstone. Those huge collars
people wore in the 70s were copied from 30s gangster style.
winkle picker suits Guardian Feb 3
01 No such thing. In the 50s winkle-picker shoes were fashionable. They had
long pointy medieval toes and are called after things you use to remove winkles
(shellfish) from their shells. They were revived around the mid-noughties but
thankfully they seem to have vanished now.
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