Fashion Terms
This term describes the overall outline or shape of a garment.
What is a Silhouette?
In this 2006 film, an aspiring writer becomes an assistant to demanding fashion editor Miranda Priestly.
What is The Devil Wears Prada?
During World War II, packaging shortages led this French luxury house to adopt its now-famous orange boxes.
What is Hermès?
Known by the nickname “Coco,” this French designer made tweed suits and quilted handbags signatures of her fashion house.
Who is Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel?
A bottle of an assistant’s red nail polish inspired this luxury shoe brand’s signature soles.
What is Christian Louboutin?
Literally meaning “high sewing,” this French term describes luxury dressmaking with garments customized for individual clients.
What is Haute Couture?
This annual fashion event is officially called the Costume Institute Benefit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
What is the Met Gala?
This brand’s crocodile logo traces back to its tennis-playing founder and a bet involving a crocodile-skin suitcase.
What is Lacoste?
This British designer created the dramatic Armadillo boots for his Plato’s Atlantis collection.
Who is Alexander McQueen?
Its name sounds German, but this luxury house began as a leather-making collective in Madrid.
What is Loewe?
Also called prêt-à-porter, this clothing is produced in standard sizes rather than made individually for one client.
What is Ready-to-wear?
This singer wore the famous green, plunging Versace dress to the 2000 Grammy Awards.
Who is Jennifer Lopez?
Material shortages in postwar Italy inspired this brand to introduce bamboo handbag handles in 1947.
What is Gucci?
This Japanese designer combined fashion and technology through his innovative pleating techniques and Pleats Pleaseline.
Who is Issey Miyake?
With the slogan “When Your Own Initials Are Enough,” this Italian house made its Intrecciato leather weave its signature.
What is Bottega Veneta?
Often used in corsets, these rigid or semi-rigid strips help a garment hold its shape.
What is Boning?
Audrey Hepburn’s long black gown in the opening scenes of Breakfast at Tiffany’s was designed by this French couturier.
Who is Hubert de Givenchy?
This French luxury house helped transform travel by introducing flat-topped trunks that could be stacked more easily than rounded ones.
What is Louis Vuitton?
This Japanese designer founded Comme des Garçons in 1969, challenging conventional ideas of beauty and the shape of clothing.
Who is Rei Kawakubo?
This house turned anonymity into a recognizable identity: a blank white label held in place by four stitches visible from the outside.
What is Maison Margiela?
This cutting technique places fabric diagonally across its grain, helping it drape around the body.
What is the bias cut?
his costume designer received an Oscar nomination for her work on The Devil Wears Prada.
Who is Patricia Field?
Material shortages in 1930s Italy inspired this shoemaker to develop wedge heels using cork.
Who is Salvatore Ferragamo?
Inspired by Surrealism, this Italian designer turned unexpected imagery into fashion, collaborated with Salvador Dalí, and made “shocking pink” her signature colour.
Who is Elsa Schiaparelli?
This French trunk-maker’s dotted canvas forms repeating Ys—a reference to its family name and its ancestors’ work transporting logs down rivers.
What is Goyard?