Talk:History of Western fashion

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[edit] Getting Started

These breakdowns by period make sense to me (for example, the New Look is in the post-war '40s but belongs with the 1950's). Please change them if you write an article that best fits a smaller (or larger) time period.

Please add the Template:History of Western Fashion to pages in this series.PKM 18:52, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll get a few of these rolling, but a cut-off date of 1795 makes more sense than 1800. Churchh 01:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

And hardly anything happened fashionwise in 1940-1945 (except some wartime economy measures), while 1900-1920 isn't really a unified period, since there were dramatic and radical changes in the last five years. I'll rejigger these periods slightly. Churchh 04:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll probably do something with 1795-1820 and 1820s soon, but I'm having browser problems and getting a lot of "Wikipedia busy" error messages, so I'm kind of tired of fighting it tonight. See what you think of 1750-1795. Churchh 04:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Good stuff! Yeah I was getting those messages on Monday a lot. I am probably going to tackle 1600-1650 next. I have some good info on fabric printing in your periods, may add it when I have time to dig up the refs. PKM 03:43, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Did the 1820's article, and added some pics to the 1830's-1840's article. Now that I have the 1795-1820 period "bracketed", I have no excuse not to start doing something on it... ;-) Churchh 04:02, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Cool, running to look...PKM 04:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Tried to incoroporate the 1890's article into the series, and also tried to bring some measure of sanity to the http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:19th_century_fashion subcategories (but this Haabet person seems to want to insist that this category should include solely 100 individual year subcategories!). Churchh 13:55, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I tend to ignore what's in wikimedia commons most of the time. Extreme granularity and insufficient substance. PKM 01:48, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I've done more work 1890s; meant to post a note here and forgot. PKM 07:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I've looked over the list of remaining redlinks, and I think my article-starting days are done in this area -- I don't really have anything to say on any of them, except maybe 1900-1915 (and I don't feel confident enough to start an article on that). Churchh 19:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1940s

I'd like to see some mention somewhere of the waretime economy measures (especially the restrictions on the amount of fabric in clothing, and the patterns on how to take apart an old man's suit to make a dress, etc.) That stuff has pretty much been forgotten. But it can certainly be a footnote to a larger period. PKM 19:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1600-1650

Got a good start on this. I am collecting material for the men's section, but it may not get written for another week or so. I have a good scholarly article on Puritan clothing as well somewhere - trying to dig it up from my files. PKM 19:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Division of the Years

I suppose these are arbitrary? One cannot really place fashion from 1650-1700 as a unit which means much. 1650s, 1660s, and 1670s, 1680-1720 would make more sense. I can start writing articles with these time divisions. Imperial78

Please do!! I've been hoping someone who knows this period would join in; my expertise runs out about 1640. And yes, use any time divisions that make logical sense. PKM 07:35, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Nice! OK, let me start writing the article using the various sources I have. My expertise is really in the men's clothing so I will start there. Imperial78

Very nice article you wrote BTW. I think I will just have the time period listed as 1650-1700. Although there are drastic changes. Discussing the changes on one page may make more sense. If an author later wants to break it up he can. Imperial78

[edit] I added the start to my 1650-1700 Fashion Page

OK, here is the start of my article. It isn't complete of course, a lot more needs to be added, such as pictures, materials, etc, but this is the start of it. Imperial78

Good start indeed. I added the little history-box template to your page. Holler if you need anything! PKM 05:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I added an intro for consistency. - PKM 20:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1880s

I started the 1880s because the gap in the timeline was bugging me, but it's just a stub and I am not very inspired at the moment. Please jump in and do something with it if you're so inclined. Will scan some things from my 1880s Delineator at some point. PKM 18:55, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The latest crisis

I uploaded a lot of pics for the 1795-1820 article (see commons:Category:1810s fashion and commons:Category:1800s fashion (decade) , but I uploaded most of the greyscale images in lossless PNG format, and what I didn't realize is that the WikiMedia software handles thumbnailing of PNG images extremely poorly -- the so-called thumbnails are always 48-bit color images, even when the source image is an 8-bit greyscale. For example, the image Image:1913-Dictates-of-Fashion-Calvert-Life-cartoon.png which I uploaded for article "Fashion" is 155,878 bytes long, but the 280px-wide alleged "thumbnail" displayed in Fashion is 167,988 bytes long, despite being much smaller. To be precise, the source image has 155878 bytes / 553610 pixels (830 x 667) for a ratio of 0.2816 bytes per pixel, while the "thumbnail" has 167988 bytes / 63000 pixels (280 x 225) for a ration of 2.6665 bytes per pixel -- or almost ten times worse!

A simple 280 x 225 256-color uncompressed BMP would be only 64,078 bytes long, so the alleged "compressed" thumbnail http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/1a/1913-Dictates-of-Fashion-Calvert-Life-cartoon.png/280px-1913-Dictates-of-Fashion-Calvert-Life-cartoon.png is actually almost three times as large as an uncompressed image would be!

I may have to re-upload all the PNGs in GIF format to get around this... Churchh 16:15, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Ugh. How frustrating. - PKM 17:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

After thrashing things through on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), it's kind of half-fixed now (or as fixed as it's going to be in the near future). Enough to make use of PNG's in articles anyway... Churchh 02:11, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just a Note

I've been a bit MIA - my day job has been interfering with my wiki-time (how rude of it). Traveling on business for a while, attendance may be spotty, but I am not permanently disappearing. - PKM 20:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You might find this amusing

"Too Much and Too Little, or Summer Cloathing of 1556 & 1796":

Oh, I do!!! - PKM 19:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Related articles

Have finally made a proper article at gown (only took me 5 months to get around to it!) and a new one at polonaise. Could use a good PD image of an 18th century polonaise - used an 1880s one (and have a couple more I can scan from the same Delineator). - PKM 19:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There's an 18th-century pic on page 431 of the 1st edition of Blanche Payne's History of Costume, but in my copy a previous owner scrawled red-lines across this.... Pity, because she's wearing an absolutely huge sack over her huge hair (I kid you not). Churchh 03:05, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Ran across a 1st edition of Payne in an antique store yeterday after I read your comment and decided it was A Sign, so I picked it up. - PKM 18:20, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The second edition may be sounder for pedagogical classroom use, but the first edition has more of a personal voice... Churchh 16:03, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Got one! Image:Polonaise_1770s.jpg. - PKM 19:10, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] By the way

Redingote really needs a pic; I only had a male one... Churchh 19:32, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, it took some digging, but I found the source of the sketch in Parry. Added a couple of other things as well and removed the stub tag. - PKM 18:47, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eighteenth century

I reorganized 1750-1795 in prep for adding men's fashion, and added some costume details. I have more pictures as well. I will also start 1700-1750 soon since the research overlaps and the gap in the history is starting to bug me. :-) - PKM 20:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Added a bunch of images and started the men's section. - PKM 22:22, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1700-1750

Started 1700-1750. Just an intro and 3 pictures so far, more soon. Feel free to jump in! - PKM 18:18, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Removed the stub flag, it's certainly long enough now. - PKM 19:07, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1830s and 1840s

I am thinking of splitting this one into a separate article for each decade before I add men's fashions. It's getting longish already. And I have more pictures. Thoughts? - PKM 19:12, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not set in stone. The reason I named it as I did was that I was trying to salvage a vandalized stub then named "1841 in fashion", and I wanted to keep the only illustration that was there at the time (of 1841), but I actually had more to say about the 1830s than the 1840s. I still do find the 1840's to be an oddly shapeless fashion period (with few really distinctive characteristics with respect to other periods in the Victorian), as per my edit summary at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1840s_in_fashion&action=history ... Churchh 04:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Empire/Regency

Started 1795-1820 in fashion#Empire.2FRegency , though it's not really anything to write home about yet... Churchh 21:58, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fashion of the common people

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.

This is an excellent series, and I was really impressed with the detail and quality of the articles. I had never really noticed how fine fashion changed from decade to decade in previous centuries, and it was neat to have the details pointed out.

One thing I did notice that was missing from the articles from the 1800s and earlier is any description of the styles of dress of the poor or working class. Certainly these are worth mentioning in addition to those of "society" men and women. -- Beland 19:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

That's a rather complicated issue. The "Sunday best" clothing of rural peasants is a matter of local costume or "national costume" or Die Tracht (as the Germans call it), and simply does not lend itself to a neat chronological treatment in terms of half-centuries or decades. (Geographical or typological subdivisions would make much more sense.) "Die Tracht" had a mostly somewhat indirect and oblique relationship with changing international elite fashions, in any case.

Servants or "upper lower class" types in cities, who were looking for opportunities, were a different matter -- they often wore somewhat simplified or modified versions of middle-class clothing. In Jane Austen's novels, women of the "genteel" classes think it's presumptuous for their female servants to wear white gowns, or hats with feathers or flowers, but otherwise the servants would have worn clothes more or less along similar lines to those of the women who employed them (though they would more often wear aprons, and would usually wear caps in place of elaborate hairstyling or headdresses). In other periods, women servants would avoid elaborate fashion extravagances (such as crinolines or bustles etc.), but would still wear clothes influenced by elite fashions (sometimes their female employers' cast off old clothes).

Then there were real lower-lower-class women, who were hardly influenced by elite fashions at all. You can see some depictions of early nineteenth century women in this category in the Pyne section at http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/rgnclfil.html Churchh 05:51, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Beland, for your compliments on the series so far.

I actually wrestled with the issue of working class and rural clothing when I started this series, and for many of the reasons Churchh states above, I deliberately chose to call it the History of Western Fashion and not the History of Western Clothing, just so we could get our hands around it - the articles are long enough as it is!

That said, I would dearly love to pull together some articles on working class clothing, perhaps by centuries or vague periods/places (Colonial America, Nineteenth Century England, the American West, etc.). I'm not sure what we should call them - "Everyday Clothing in..."? "Working Clothes in..."? - PKM 02:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

If you confine yourself to England and the U.S. from the 18th-century to the present, then that actually avoids some of the more intrachtable problems, since there was more literacy and less localistic particularism (and so less proud independence of changing elite trends) there and then than on the Continent, or during earlier periods.

Of course, even elite fashions had strong national variations through the 16th century, and as late as the mid-17th century in Spain (according to Payne)... Churchh 08:37, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, we could start with England and the US (and maybe Ireland and Scotland), and see if anyone who knows other periods/places wants to jump in. Build a structure and they will come? We don't have to fill in all the gaps ourselves.

And Payne is dead-on on Spanish fashion - from about 1580 - 1650 it's really different from French or English fashion; the cone farthingale and high ruff hung on very late, and Spanish portraits around the turn of the 17th century show long pointed oversleeves that don't appear anywhere else, and the sort of wide farthingales you see in Las Meninas (1656) are like nothing else worn in Europe at this time. - PKM 03:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure -- I have some citations and references to Jane Austen's period about features of female servants' attire that the employers of the servants then regarded as evidence of presuming above their station. I was just pointing out that since England and the U.S. from the 18th-century to the present have been fairly de-peasantized, this would leave the whole field of local pecularities of peasant costume still almost wholly untouched ;-) Churchh 21:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

The Country Wedding by John Lewis Krimmel

Here's another pic, showing the wedding (at home) of the daughter of a moderately prosperous Pennsylvania farmer in the late 1810's. Here the women are not making any pretense of trying to compete with Paris, and the men aren't making any pretense of competing with London, but it's still obvious that they're somewhat strongly influenced by general elite fashion currents (even if a few years behind), in a way that many local Continental European peasant groups weren't really.... Churchh 17:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Useful pic

I've uploaded the caricature "Female Opinions on Military Tactics", which could be helpful, since it shows women of a fairly wide range of social classes. (Note that some of the older women are wearing out-of-date styles...) Churchh 07:16, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

ooh, there's a good point - we haven't really addressed that in any period older women tend to wear a conservative fashion more typical of their young womanhood (and before modern ready-to-wear, a lot of them were wearing the same gowns). - PKM 17:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I have an 1840 illustration of a Johann Nestroy play, showing an older woman wearing something more-or-less 1820-ish, while the younger women show a somewhat corseted and bell-skirted classic Victorian silhouette -- it looks funny now, since the younger women's clothes seem less modern than the older woman's. Churchh 07:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Here it is:

Der Talisman

Churchh 06:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gallery styles

I think we should pick one gallery style and stick to it, at least within each article if not within the entire series. There are two styles in 1795-1820 in fashion and a third one in 1890s in fashion.

Do we want to continue with the captions under each picture, or numbering the pictures and all the captions below? (and if the latter, with the "gallery" command that makes tiny pictures in big frames (hard to see, but quick to load), or with hand-sizing the images? - PKM 17:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

See explanation at Talk:1795-1820 in fashion. Adding one pic into an already-existing "numbered" gallery is no difficulty, but creating three separate numbered galleries from scratch (with every image having two tags in separate places that have to be correlated, and having to guesstimate an appropriate pixel width for each image thumbnail) was more work than I really felt like taking on when I was creating the Empire/Regency subsection. Churchh 07:27, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I am going to standardize on the "gallery" command with detailed captions below, as easiest for multiple people to edit, conservative of space and bandwidth, and easiest to read. Have started standardizing, will continue over time. - PKM 21:57, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another pic needed

Macaroni (fashion) really needs a suitable illustration -- some of the ca. 1760's caricatures I've seen are mind-boggling, but I don't have any as images now... Churchh 17:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Got one: Image:Macaroni 1773.jpg. Posting to article now. - PKM 17:54, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks -- the image itself is usable on Wikipedia, but the whole discussion of it is presumably copyrighted to Yale... Churchh 06:57, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Gack, I had no intention of posting any of that commentary - my cut and paste must have gotten away from me. I was just intending to get the three lines down through the date. Absolutely concur, thanks for catching and fixing. - PKM 16:57, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jodhpur

Jodhpur needs a pic, and maybe some editing. Churchh 22:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Oops, meant Jodhpurs . Churchh 19:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Would this one do? (Copyright okay?) - PKM 03:22, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

That link doesn't work for me, but if it was from the 1940s, it wouldn't automatically be out of copyright... Churchh 15:36, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Greek and Roman wear

We need an article on Greek and Roman styles -- all there is currently are scattered small articles like Himation and Chiton (costume), etc. Churchh 19:33, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we do. Any experts out there? I suppose we could do an outline article based on research and fill in as time permits.

I'd like to turn History of Western fashion into a subseries of a general History of clothing that addresses regional clothing, working clothes, and other periods - I think it needs to be structured by both place and time, and allow other places and times to be added organically. Not sure how to name the articles: Clothing in (period/place)? History of clothing - (period/place) where period/place is "ancient Greece and Rome", "medieval Europe", "ancient Egypt". Or do we just do articles as the fancy strikes and then link them from a survey article? - PKM 17:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe "X-an attire" (Cretan attire, Egyptian attire etc.), or "X-an styles", or "X-an clothing and adornment"? Not sure what the survey article would be... Churchh 00:22, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Resolving the Edit War

There is currently something of an edit war raging over the categorization of the various clothing articles. Since a WikiProject seems overly complicated for resolving this (though I am game if others are) I would like to propose a compromise solution here.

[edit] Background

The current brouhaha arose over the decision of User:TheEditrix to massively recategorize articles in Category:History of fashion created by User:Churchh into Category:European clothing (historic). See User_talk:TheEditrix#European clothing (historic) for the current dispute.

[edit] My proposal 1: I hold these truths to be self-evident

Not all clothing is fashion; not all fashion is clothing. These are intersecting sets.
Labeling a fashion arising in America "European" is not helpful in an encyclopedia.
The exact beginning of "fashion" as a concept is hopelessly vague.
"Fashion" as we know it certainly existed by the mid-18th century when dressed dolls and later fashuon plates appeared.
Unlike birds and arthropods, clothing does not necessarily fall into neat taxonomies.
Whether "European" is an ethnicity is debatable.
Categories should be used to help readers find content.
Edit wars are unproductive.

[edit] My proposal 2: Proposed categorization

Consider replacing Category:European clothing (historic) with Category:History of clothing (Europe) and creating parallel categories Category:History of clothing (Ancient Rome), Category:History of clothing (Asia), Category:History of clothing (Colonial America) etc.
Consider replacing Category:History of fashion with Category:History of clothing (Western fashion).

Fold all of these in a higher category History of clothing.

Depending on how consensus is reached:

Apply Category:History of clothing (Europe) to clothing items worn in Europe between c. AD 350 (beginnings of Middle Ages more or less) and 1750, including clothing worn by European colonists in other places.
Apply Category:History of clothing (Europe) to traditional European folkwear and occuptional clothing regardless of time period (omitted item added PKM 16:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC))
Apply Category:History of clothing (Western fashion) to clothing items worn in Europe and the Americas and other places from c. 1750.
Apply Category:History of clothing (Western fashion) to articles about fashion itself, including the History of Western fashion series.
Apply both categories to the same article when it seems a reader might reasonably expect to find the article in both places.

Comments welcome. - PKM 03:44, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Works for me. I vote yes. (With the proviso that Category:Clothing by nationality (or some semblance thereof) continues to function as its own category. I didn't create that page, but it's a good one.) The Editrix 06:11, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, Category:Clothing by nationality is useful and should remain (possibly with a "see also" to Category:History of clothing at the top. The trews and the belted plaid are most definitely both Scottish dress with a strong ethnic identity and historical clothing worn in Europe. - PKM 16:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi all,

I think PKM has made an excellent suggestion in every respect. As I understand the original debate, The Editrix objected to the History of Fashion category as being too broad (since it covers clothing in all times and places) and seemed to be trying to make sensible sub-categories organized by place, whereas Churchh had been organizing by time. PKM's suggestions that

we categorize by both time and place using a common language, and
replace "fashion" with the more concrete term "clothing"

seem preferable. So, if I've understood correctly, the zoot suit would be in two kinds of categories, those that specify time (1930's clothing, 1940's clothing) and those that specify place (North America?). Categorization by ethnic group, nationality and/or culture (Chicano? goth?) might be other good approaches. I agree with Churchh's point that all categorization should be as accurate and general as possible; hopefully, errors in categorization can be cleared up in a friendly way, ideally, by providing references.

I also think we should agree to talk among ourselves before making massive changes/deletions of each other's work. Churchh's tone did seem unnecessarily impatient and adversarial, but I do sympathize with his feelings when an unproven stranger suddenly begins deleting or replacing your contributions with imperfectly considered/worded alternatives with no consultation. Since there's only a handful of editors who are contributing actively to clothing-related articles, we should act more like a family of friendly collaborators, don't you agree? The long and fruitful collaboration between PKM and Churchh seems a model of Wiki-collaboration; and there's so much left to be done on clothing, that it seems silly to spend our time reverting each other's work. Speaking for myself, I keenly feel my own limitations in wording and thinking and even basic expertise in clothing, so I welcome it when others offer me advice. I also love the talking that goes with the advice, the feeling of being part of a community of well-meaning, expert editors; unfortunately, the world of knitting (where I usually work) is rather lonely. :( WillowW 08:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, WillowW. I can't knit to save my life, but perhaps you can advise us on knitted garments - we really don't have much of that. - PKM 16:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC) (PS it's hard to have a community without names. Online I'm Paula Kate or pk for short)

Um, I've been taking a Wiki-break, I'll add my 2 cents and leave -- I think PKM has made some useful suggestions. Vote YES.

I also think that we should have a Wikiproject for clothing, as a place to communicate. I started one for Indian cinema and it has been great for communication and coordination. For all clothing, all times and ethnicities.

Only question for me is whether clothing should be combined with a textiles project, or whether textiles should have its own separate project. I think separate, since there are a lot of uses for textiles other than clothing.

I intend to remain on Wiki-break for a while, since I was getting over-worked, stressed out, and extremely angry (at nationalists and teenage boys with agendas and too much testosterone), but if there's no project when I come back, I'll start one. Zora 22:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that "Clothing and Fashion" be one project, "Textiles" another, and "Needlework" possibly a third - but I don't have the bandwidth to commit to robust activity on all three at once! Clearly they overlap and intersect, with both textiles and needlework embellishments being being important considerations in the history of clothing (and fixing haute couture etc. would go hand-in-hand with writing the history of 20th century fashion). I do agree that a formal project is the best way to advertise what we're about and see if we can recruit more editors. I don't have the arcane wiki skills necessary to write templates and bots for our project. - PKM 00:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I negelected to mention that European folkwear and traditional occupational costumes (as described by User:Churchh above) would certainly go in History of clothing (Europe) even if they are 19th century. Will add above for clarity - PKM 16:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

It's perfectly reasonable as far as it goes (I'm not sure I'm firmly persuaded that 1750 is a meaningful date to assign to the "birth of fashion", but on the other hand, one thing that's indisputable is that there was no significant "blow-back", or influence of the colonies on metropole European styles, before 1750); so in that snense I would support it. But it doesn't directly address the other issue of inappropriate microcategorization -- replacing somewhat broad general categories with very narrow and rigidly defined ones, which don't in fact cover the whole spread of the phenomenon in space and/or time (as was done with Empire silhouette). Churchh 20:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, individual editors of good will can still disagree, but if we need a specific recommendation on Empire silhouette, the under the new scheme I would:

- Assign it to cat History of clothing (Western fashion) as the "idea" of the Empire silhouette arose c. 1800 and was resurrected in the 1960s, both clearly in that category
- Link to it in some survey article on classical Greek clothing under a subheading such as "enduring influence of classical style"
- Link to it from 1960s in fashion.
- If the consensus is that the current Category:1960s fashion should live on, then I'd assign that as well, but personally I find that category too small to be viable. (And I would suggest recommending it formally for deletion and absorption of individual articles into Category:1960s or the new History of clothing (Western fashion) and getting feedback before taking action).

And I would put a "see also on the History of clothing (Western fashion) page to reference "Western wear". - PKM 21:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good -- you seem to be the badly-needed voice of common sense here, PKM ;-) Churchh 04:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so I count 4 Ayes (including the disputants and not including me) and 0 Noes. Shall we let this percolate for a few days to see if anyone has further comments or refinements, or do we feel there has been sufficient discussion? I am not in any hurry. - PKM 16:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The few days are up. Let's do it! (And PKM, I temporarily moved your newest excellent article to hang with its buddies at European clothing until the new categories are up and running.) The Editrix 16:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, absolutely.

I seem to have lost the post here where I said that I have created template:clothingcats to put on the talk pages of articles we move. Any comments on this? We can put "recat - see talk" or the like in the comments line on our edits - PKM 03:51, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Here we go

Okay, I have created:

Category:History of clothing (Western fashion) and added a couple of things
Category:History of clothing (Europe) and added Farthingale and the survey articles for 1550-1750 and a couple of other things
Category:History of clothing containing the above and itself contained in Category:Clothing

Go ye forth and populate them! (And feel free to edit the text on those categories.)

Also - we should formally propose converting Category:Roman era clothing to Category:History of clothing (ancient Rome) to the editors there. Any volunteers for that? (PS I will be travelling on business next week and a bit out of touch, but should be around this weekend.) - PKM 03:10, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, all! :) I'll volunteer to contact them, since I have an affection for the ancient world. I started off the categories for ancient Rome, ancient Greece and the Byzantine empire -- do the text and dates seem OK? WillowW 10:08, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The Category:Clothing by nationality is not compatible with these names, which was the stipulation under which I originally agreed to this proposal. I see, too, that in express contravention of that agreement, the new categories are NOT being listed under Category:Clothing by nationality. I protest these changes in the strongest possible terms. --The Editrix 18:19, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, E, welcome back to the discussion. I deeply apologize for not understanding that those 3 new categories should have been cross-listed under Category:Clothing by nationality. I see now how they are analogous to other members of the category, such as Category:Aztec clothing and have amended my oversight. But perhaps you have other concerns that cross-listing doesn't address? If so, could you please articulate them for me (and perhaps the others)? I'll confess to being a "bear of little brain and long words bother me" -- like contravention. ;) Con affetto, WillowW 19:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I do not think of the Roman Empire as a "nationality", but I can see how others might. Is there an issue with Europe? I don't think of "European" as a nationality either, but if anyone feels that Category:History of clothing (Europe) should also be a subcat of Category:Clothing by nationality, feel free to make it so with my blessing. Whatever helps readers find the information they seek works for me. - PKM 03:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi all, there's been only one external objection to the recategorization so far, but it may suggest a good idea. Paraphrasing the objection, we should consider whether the category might be better as "Clothing in ancient Rome", rather than "History of clothing (ancient Rome)". The latter category -- our present choice -- seems less intuitive by comparison and could hamper our flexibility later, since it locks us into the "History of clothing" category. A simple "Clothing in ancient Rome" category could be classified under multiple categories, e.g., Category:History of clothing, Category:Clothing by nationality, Category:Clothing by geography or (my favorite) Category:Clothing in regimented, multiethnic empires ;), which might give readers more opportunities to find it. What do you all think? WillowW 21:08, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting idea. "Clothing in Europe" would certainly work in this scheme, as would "Clothing in Colonial America", etc. Does anyone have an idea of what to do with our dear friend "Western fashion"? The original objection that started all of this was that "History of fashion" contained too many articles with no finer subcategorization.

I think we still end up struggling with how to categorize articles on individual garments that have a long lifespan in time and place (gown, trousers, corset, petticoat, shirt) without applying many categories to each. "Toga" clearly goes with ancient Rome, but what do we do with "cloak"? - PKM 22:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem with the name "Clothing in X" is that within categories, it tends to get listed under the letter C for clothing rather than by X, the name of the location. As a solution, may I present to you: "X clothing", which is shorter, and clearer. Moreover, there's room there for the Historic designation. To wit: Roman-era clothing, Greek-era clothing, Byzantine-era clothing. Solves all my concerns, and fits the By Nationality category along with Polish clothing, Chinese clothing et al.

And as for your question about Western fashion, since "Western wear" refers specifically to cowboy boots and stetson hats, I propose the term used throughout Asia, India, South America, and Africa to describe societies rife with people of European descent: European clothing (historic).

Historically (which is of course the topic under consideration here) it was also an accurate political designation. North American fashion was, in fact, European fashion, both because it originated there and because the various parts of North America were Dutch, British, French, Portuguese, or Spanish colonies. --The Editrix 18:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fatal confusion between Western wear and Western fashion?

Please tell me why it is that no one except you ever spends one single microsecond worrying about the dreaded bogeyman spectre of the purely speculative hypothetical potential possible problem of the allegedly fatal confusion between "Western wear" and "Western fashion"?!?!?!? And please stop trying to mess up the structure of the clothing categories in order to fend off this purely speculative hypothetical dreaded bogeyman spectre of the alleged potential problem of someone at some indefinite future time possibly (though rather unlikely) confusing the concepts "Western wear" and "Western fashion"!! Maybe the best thing for you to do (from the point of view of those of us who are actually actively working to improve the Wikipedia coverage of historical clothing) would be just to LEAVE US ALONE to get on with doing our thing. Thank you! Churchh 03:47, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Forgive me for saying this, but more than one person here could use a nap. Anger is misplaced, and calling a major contributor a buffoon is likewise inappropriate, especially when one has not contributed to the content being categorized in any significant way. Respect is earned, not demanded or imposed.

In one sense, this is all a tempest in a teapot. We could call the "Western fashion" category the History of gumdrops and readers would still find the articles, no? Still, a good encyclopedia should have good indexing, and I for one am willing to invest the time now to get the category names as good as possible.

I think it's premature to put the category names to a vote, since we haven't exhausted our imaginations yet to find a pithy yet precise name for what we mean by "Western fashion". Perhaps Paula Kate and Churchh can specify what countries and time period they intend to be covered by "Western fashion". I've been assuming that it means all of North America and all of Europe (including "European" Russia after Peter the Great), but not South America, not Asia (not even Turkey) and not Africa. Is that a correct summary, or is something missing?

After we've exhausted our imaginations, dictionaries and thesauri, and come up with the best possible candidate names for the various categories, let's put them to a vote. My inclination is to weight the voting by the amount of actual contributed content being categorized, but I'm open to other suggestions. Serenely, WillowW 13:32, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Forgive me, Churchh, for changing your heading; it wasn't well-rendered by my browser and was hurting my eyes to read. I tried to keep the sense of what you were saying.

Sorry, but if anything could drive me off of Wikipedia, it's having to put up with a continual stream of nonsense from the likes of Haabet and TheEditrix -- neither of them seems to really ever learn anything, but instead they just continue on their exact same particular personal course, raising and re-raising the same old tired issues, regardless of whatever facts or objections have been adduced in the past by other people. Churchh 17:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Take heart, Churchh, there seem to be more people actually adding content than those throwing in their sabot (why isn't that under Category:Footwear?) Even people who are difficult in one area, may be gifted and friendly in another setting. I'd never heard of User:Haabet before; I guess he likes women in corsets? His wealth of contributed images is really impressive - they leave me breathless ;) But maybe we shouldn't mention any names here; it's a little unfriendly and, I dunno, not helpful. Besides, you know the old saying about who shows up if their name is mentioned... WillowW 21:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, so I'm still a little unclear about the definition of "Western fashion"? Does it mean "fashion in the Western hemisphere" or "fashion in Western Europe and its colonies" or something else? It would help me to understand what the scope is, e.g., what countries, peoples and/or times are being covered. For example, is Poland or Mexico included? Maybe "fashion" refers to the commercial aspect, businesses that design and market clothing, so that no folk-dress is covered? Maybe it's obvious and I'm just clueless. :( WillowW 10:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Japan, 1887

If we just had one "History of fashion" category, then we wouldn't have to worry about overthinking such distinctions -- but I would consider the ladies at right to be wearing "Western" fashions! Churchh 10:44, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Churchh, cool picture! :) There's a similar Renoir painting, isn't there? Different cultures can certainly wear or make each others' fashions (e.g., an ambassador to Saudi Arabia wearing Arabic robes and headdress). A friend once told me that "Western" formalwear was often a part of modern Japanese weddings (e.g., the bride slips into a white gown at one point). Yet exceptions can prove the rule, right? We can still categorize clothing by what is typical of a place or era.

I'm OK with a distinct "History of fashion" category, although it seems a little risky for you, given the super-broad definition of fashion in Wikipedia. If I understand you correctly, you mean "fashion" to be synonymous with "personal fashion designed by a business, or an imitation thereof"; so we could never have "Eskimo fashions" or "Fashion in ancient Egypt" of "Fashion in the Han dynasty" since, I'm guessing, they had no equivalent of Dior or Dolce & Gabbana.

My own interest is instead more in clothing categories, how clothing is made and worn and details such as warmth, cut, embellishment, etc. Since "clothing" and its history includes so much, it does seem useful to have a systematic set of categories for navigation. Suppose you were a costume designer for a small theater company in northern Wisconsin (or Bangalore or Ulan Bator) and you needed to know the typical wedding clothing worn by upper-class women in Oscar Wilde's London -- wouldn't it be nice to have a clean system of categories? I agree with you that overly fine categorization is silly and difficult for authors, and that articles should be categorized accurately under the broadest pertinent category. Still, I hope authors will be able to distinguish between "maternity wear" and "religous vesture" without too much difficulty. ;) As an aside, do you think that a hypothetical costume designer is a good target audience? WillowW 11:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Best choices for top-level categories under Category:Clothing?

Hi all!

It's my feeling that we should not choose the names for our categories based on their alphabetization in the next higher category, since that can be changed with little effort. For example, the Category:History of clothing (ancient Rome) is categorized in Category:History of clothing under "Ancient Rome", rather than under "History". Therefore, it seems like we should just choose the category names that are likely to be most intelligible to the average reader and help them find what they're looking for.

People's opinion will differ, but I prefer "Clothing in ancient Greece" to "Greek-era clothing". The latter is shorter, to be sure, but more ambiguous; I can think of several important "eras" that involved Greeks that might be covered by "Greek-era clothing".

I hate to delay our recategorization, but maybe we should spend some more time now thinking this through and coming to consensus. Here's my understanding (which may be grossly wrong!) of our terms. Nationality to me connotes the citizens of a political entity with well-defined borders, whereas ethnicity to me means a culturally homogeneous and genetically related people that may spill across political borders. For example, the Polish people were still ethnically Polish, even when they were part of the Swedish, Prussian and Russian nations. These definitions also seem consistent with the Wikipedia articles linked above. Culture to me would connote a group of people that share a common viewpoint, even if they're not related genetically, e.g., "goth culture" or "geek culture". There's also possible categorizations by geography (e.g., "Clothing in cold climates" or "Clothing at high altitudes") and by use ("Wedding clothing", "Laboratory clothing", "Clothing for travelling", "Maternity clothing", etc.). Does it seem reasonable to you all to create these categories as sub-categories under Category:Clothing, on an equal footing with Category:History of clothing?

As for "Western fashion", how about "European and American fashion"? It's long-winded, but it sidesteps the unhappy ambiguity of "Western" and allows for at least a few North American innovations in clothing. ;)

Finally, regarding "cloak", perhaps we don't need to categorize it by time? We could categorize it by use (e.g., "travelling clothes") or design catch-all categories (e.g., "Cross-cultural clothing") for such "universal" clothing. Just an idea. WillowW 20:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Another useful clothing category might be "Clothing by person" (or some such name), which might contain "Women's clothing", "Men's clothing", "Girls' clothing", "Boys' clothing", "Infant clothing", etc. WillowW 22:02, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

P.P.S. Finally, how about a Category:Design/construction of clothing category to embrace articles on the technical aspects of clothing? That's more my interest, anyway.

For clarification, I'm asking two related questions.

Do we agree that the following eight categories are sensible top-level categories under Category:Clothing?

Category:History of clothing
Category:Clothing by nationality
Category:Clothing by ethnicity
Category:Clothing by (sub)culture
Category:Clothing by geography
Category:Clothing by use
Category:Clothing by person
Category:Design/construction of clothing

To me, these concepts seem to comprehend the articles already categorized under Category:Clothing, but perhaps I've missed something. We may also wish to adopt different names for these concepts.

My second question is whether we agree with the current Wikipedia definitions of nationality, ethnicity, etc. or whether we wish to introduce inconsistency within Wikipedia. I think we as a group should adopt the principle of striving for maximum consistency within Wikipedia, even if it means abandoning a much cherished usage.

Let's not lose hope that we can reach consensus! :) WillowW 18:45, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

In general, article talk pages are for talking about articles. You might want to use Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories or Wikipedia talk:Categorization or perhaps Wikipedia:WikiProject History instead, and maybe drop a note at the Village Pump.

As for the suggestion, I find it excellent. One thing Wikipedia sorely lacks is sensible categorization. Personally, however, I would avoid the use of unnecessary punctuation marks: for instance, drop the "(sub)", and say "Design and construction" rather than "Design/construction". Note that this page is "History of Western fashion" and not "History of fashion (Western)". :) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:47, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Doh! I overlooked two of the most obvious top-level categories:

Category:Articles of clothing, which is akin to the "List of types of clothing". This category is meant to organize clothing by its position on the body or what it covers, e.g., Category:Tops or Category:Footwear or Category:Underwear or Cloak. This category may be superfluous, however.

Category:Clothing by fashion, which might contain articles such as New Look. Another name for this category might be Category:Clothing by silhouette, although that might have the (un)desirable property of conflating different styles, such as Dior's New Look and the 1850's antebellum look. We could also make these two categories distinct, which could help with recurrent styles such as the Empire waist.

These are 10, maybe 11, top-level categories proposed under Category:Clothing, but perhaps you all have other ideas or suggestions? It'd be nice if we could agree among ourselves, or at least narrow the list of candidate category names, before bringing the matter up at Wikipedia talk:Categorization. I read through their archives and the various guidelines, and this categorization seems at least consistent with what others have done. Please let me know what you all think. WillowW 09:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Don't overthink it!

I never saw anything wrong with just having a single "History of fashion" category in the first place. The problem with having numerous microcategories is that you can spend more time on worrying how to categorize an article than you spend on actually trying to write a good article. The more narrower categories there are, the more grey areas and difficult borderline cases there will be, and the more situations where the narrow categories don't capture the full scope of the phenomenon covered in the article (as was aready seen at Empire silhouette).

Category-splitting is fine when it arises organically out of a widely-perceived need to differentiate things which have previously been lumped together -- but when it arises out of an a priori abstract conceptual schema (which may not have much connection with the actual needs of those actually "in the trenches" editing articles), then it's sometimes not so good... Churchh 17:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, I agreed above to the addition of two categories (and the deletion of two), not to the addition of ten... Churchh 17:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Churchh, thanks for your thoughtful letter. Just to clarify, there's still only one Category:History of clothing category; we wouldn't change that at all. It does seem sensible to create categories on an "as needed" basis, and I definitely would agree with you if I thought that the other eight categories would be empty initially. But we could start filling these new categories right away, with articles and categories found already under Category:Clothing. I do think the new categories would also help with making the navigation of Clothing articles easier for new readers. Does that make the "scheme" seem more reasonable? WillowW 19:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello all, I am back. Good thinking and good comments. If I said I don't care how we categorize the clothing articles would you all be disillusioned? Really, I would rather spend my time adding content.

Nevertheless, since I started both the "Western fashion" meme and the article on "Western wear" I probably need to explain my logic. I specifically chose "western fashion" so as not to privilege the "European-ness" of what is as often created in America as in Europe. By this term I meant international fashion (business suits, jeans, ball gowns, tee-shirts, motorcyle jackets) as worn everywhere in the world now by people of many ethnicities and nationalities when they are not wearing traditional, national or ethnic dress (their own or someone elses').

If the consensus here is that "European" is a better designation for this type of clothing than Western (and perhaps will be better understood around the world) then I have no beef with that.

I also agree that the absence of puctuation is a good idea - and the use of parentheses is my original proposal is a flaw. - PKM 15:59, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Paula Kate, welcome back from your trip!

I'm OK with "European fashion", but I likewise feel that we shouldn't slight the modern non-European designers in America, Japan, etc. Maybe "International fashion" is better, at least for the modern era?

If it's really OK with you all, I wouldn't mind trying out those top-level categories. How about trying it on probation, say, for a week or two? By then it should be obvious whether it helps or not. If we don't like it, I'll commit to reverting the categories just as they were. We can also solicit opinions from the wider Wiki community as well. WillowW 20:29, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I am steam-shoveling through men's 19th century clothing at the moment and don't want to loose my momentum. How does everyone else feel? - PKM 01:55, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment. The main problem is that there has been a confusion with the use of the word "fashion". It holds a dual meaning - one definition is: changing cultural and social taste in art, music, film, clothing, etc - the other definition is: clothing. The Fashion cat should relate to changes in culture. The Clothing cat should relate to clothing. Article titles when talking about clothing are clearer when using the word "clothing" rather than "fashion". This article for example is about the history of western clothing - yet it is called the History of Western fashion. This can cause confusion. SilkTork 23:28, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Interesting take, that hadn't occured to me. We've been trying to divide "clothing" into "fashionable clothing" and "everything else". Perhaps that's a false dichotomy. (All, I invited SilkTork to comment, since he's an experienced editor and categorist working elsewhere in clothing.) - PKM 17:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been trying to break down the two areas: Fashion (cultural change) and Clothing. This is going quite well. But there is a MASSIVE amount of stubs which have been held under the dual use fashion stub. I have created two new stub templates. The original fashion-stub category is now to be used for Fashion (cultural change): Category:Fashion stubs - the fashion-stub on that page directs to that category (and there is still tons of sorting to be done there). For clothing I have created a new cat: Category:Clothing stubs and the clothing stub on that page directs to that category. So - for fashion (cultural change) the stub is {{fashionstub}}, while for clothing the stub is {{clothingstub}}. Let me know if you have any queries. SilkTork 21:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I've just been informed there is a potential problem with the stubs. I think it has something to do with the naming. Stub experts are looking into the matter right now as we speak. Hopefully they'll have the matter sorted shortly. In the meantime it would be better if the stubtemplates mentioned above are not used. SilkTork 11:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem with the stubs is that they should be proposed first (as it says at WP:STUB), so that they follow the basic naming conventions and stub hierarchy, and so that those who use stubs regularly could debate their worth and whether there are any special circumstances involving their use. As far as the naming is concerned, it looks very odd having 1400 stub templates all named xxx-stub and two names xxxstub. In terms of "special circumstances", there was already a clothing-stub which was ready for splitting out (it was a redirect to fashion-stub and just needed a small tweak to turn it into a stand-alone stub type). Simply creating two new templates (which will now need deletion) just made extra work for everyone. As it is, fashionstub is speediable, since it's a duplicate of fashion-stub (though the icon is worth keeping). Clothing-stub needs a little more debate (at WP:SFD) but is likely to be kept separate with that name. Feel free to use fashion-stub and clothing-stub (with the hyphens) - the worst that will happen with them is that they'll be re-combined into the one stub category. Grutness...wha? 01:42, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
- PS - one thing that would be a great help if anyone is keen is that the fashion-stub template and clothing-stub redirect were used fairly haphazardly. There will need to be a bit of sifting and sorting among the two categories to see which article goes where... Grutness...wha? 01:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to undertake that, once the formalities are settled. I tried to find the proposal/discussion of the fashion and clothing stubs at WP:STUB, though, and was having some trouble -- could you point us to the right page, Grutness?

Here's an update on the clothing categories. About a week ago, I asked for people's advice on the clothing categories on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (categories), Wikipedia talk:Categorization and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories. There was a little discussion, but not as much as I expected. A few suggestions were made for reducing the number of top-level categories:

Fold Category:Clothing by nationality, Category:Clothing by ethnicity and Category:Clothing by culture into one big category, tentatively called Category:Clothing by culture. In the original idea, only one of the three would be allowed for any given subcategory, anyway; e.g., Category:Polish clothing might have gone under Category:Clothing by ethnicity. But they also recommended that we add a "subculture" category to discern, say, "Goth subculture clothing" from "Goth ethnicity clothing".

Fold Category:Clothing by geography into Category:Clothing by use.

Come up with a better name for Category:Clothing by person, e.g., Category:Clothing by gender and age, since the former is confusingly vague, and might connote clothing worn by notables or designed by celebrities or something like that.

I'll wait a little longer, though, to see if there are any further suggestions. Willow 10:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for raising the issue in the official places, Willow.

Do we really want top-level categories for men's and women's clothing? I see that they make sense, but a lot of articles will end up being in both (coat, gown, jacket, for example) or neither - if neither, the category becomes less useful to the reader trying to find things. "Unisex clothing" doesn't exactly cut it.

Taxonomy is hard. - PKM 17:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Great Blanking

I am still stumbling across missing bits that were not replaced after someone came through and blanked random sections of the History of Fashion series and other clothing articles. Please watch for these and help me put them back.

I have to say, it was so dispiriting I thought about walking away. - PKM 17:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 20th century

Started 1900s in fashion. Still needs expanding, and then we need to tackle 1910s. - PKM 23:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Medieval costume

I would like to suggest that we move 1300-1400 in fashion and 1400-1500 in fashion to Medieval costume 1300-1400 and Medieval costume 1400-1500. I am not convinced that "fashion" as we think of it really applies to European clothing in the Middle Ages. We can then fill in the earlier medieval periods as we go.

I would like consensus from other editors working on these articles before making the change.

Can we discuss at Talk:1300-1400 in fashion - PKM 17:42, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

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