Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fashion

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Welcome! Calliopejen 18:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

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[edit] Cosmetics

Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Cosmetics , maybe that should be made a subproject or something, and thanks, Jen! Chris 00:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some introductory thoughts and impressions

After deciding I would take this project more seriously and going through articles doing inventory and assessment, I have some general observations about things to consider down the line.

First, generally, as myself and Calliopejen have observed, the existing coverage of fashion here is just terrible. I have given out very few B-classes so far, and I think all of them were because other projects had so tagged them. We, and future editors on this project, have a lot of work to do. Biographies especially are in poor shape, with very few references and a lot of promotional-sounding text. There was only so much of this I could stand to wade through at a time.

The other thing was the scope we're dealing with here. Fashion simply reaches into so many other subjects − history, culture etc. We need more editors, and the sooner the better. This would easily be the vastest WikiProject I've signed on to, requiring editors familiar with so many other subjects. We need to reach out to the other projects. Daniel Case 18:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible future divisions of responsibility

I see us eventually developing task forces and/or working groups within this once we have enough people. Here are some possible ways of dividing things up.

First, borrow from the usual divisions of labor at fashion magazines:

  • Accessories: Bags, jewelry etc.
  • Beauty: This could bring in the proposed Cosmetics project, plus we could cover hair and skin and nails as well.
  • Menswear and Womenswear: There are many ways to divide types of garments, but this seems to be the oldest and most reliable. I won't even get into what kind of further subdivisions are available; we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Some people might also consider a sort of "living" or "lifestyles"-type working group/task force, but I think interiors and decoration probably merits a separate project entirely.

Now some peculiar to Wikipedia:

  • Biographies. We must see at WP:BIO if their Arts and Entertainment working group would be interested in setting up a fashion task force, which would be identical with biography TF/WG.
  • History. Some of the better articles I've come across are ones about fashions of historical eras. This merits a subgrouping.
  • Ethnic/national/cultural. I can also see developing articles on the clothing styles of these human subgroups; they would deserve special attention.
  • Publications. Print and electronic media that cover fashion and are sufficiently notable in the latter instance.
  • Popular culture. Another rich subtopic. We have categories for fashion movies (thanks to me) and fashion-related TV shows. I just created Category:Songs about fashion today and populated it with about a dozen entries. Feel free to add more (and create one for "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" while you're at it ... I would rate that one of high importance since it captures a particularly important fashion moment). I will be folding all three of them from the top fashion cat into something like "fashion in popular culture" later. We should also add a cat for fiction set in the fashion world, although I can't imagine yet what we have that would go in it other than The Devil Wears Prada (novel) yet.
  • Business. Covering companies that make and sell fashion, as well as any labels made by companies other than ones bearing the company or designer's name. We would want to work with the retailing project here.
  • Education. Fashion training programs and schools like Fashion Institute of Technology.
  • Photography. For taking pictures (see discussion below). Daniel Case 18:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Agree. This seems like an excellent categorization to me. I'd like to avoid endless arguing about taxonomy - there is always more than one approach - s0 if we can get consensus early on then maybe we can avoid that. PKM 18:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infoboxes

Two issues I can see:

  • First, a parameter should be added to {{Infobox Fashion Designer}} for the designer's logo, per many other infoboxes, since it's often a very integral part of the brand (think Gucci or Chanel).
  • Second, we might need some other infoboxes to cover the sort of things we'll do lots of articles about that aren't yet covered by infoboxes. Clothing labels, for instance. If there isn't one for fabrics, there should be (the textile arts project would also benefit from that). And maybe we could even come up with one for individual garment types. Daniel Case 18:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming conventions and notability threshold

We need to decide on these, particularly the latter, before we find ourselves in some ugly AFDs. How deep do we want our coverage to be, and how deep should it be? Do we want articles about each individual designer's collections? Each season's collections? Or will "YEAR in fashion" do for that? And how do we name these? I suggest again we initiate discussion over WP:N at least on the first issue before we even begin to get to the second. Daniel Case 18:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images

There is a big issue here. Obviously, we can't have an effective fashion project without pictures. There are lots of good pictures out there. But at the same time, almost all of them are going to be considered replaceable fair use and thus we can't use them. We need a source of free pictures. We're probably going to have to take a lot of pictures ourselves. Anyone willing to model things?

And over and above that, fashion creates an issue. It's copyrighted creative work. Panorama freedom in the U.S. allows for the photographing of clothing without making the photograph a derivative work, but this is not the rule in some other countries. We may thus not be able to upload images to the Commons due to the third-party copyrights.

Also, what about photographs of clothing on mannequins? Even if they're cast from real models, I would imagine there's still some creative art involved and they are thus covered by {{statue}}. And the original model retains personality rights over their likeness (although that hasn't been a problem here). I'll ask about this over at WP:FU. Daniel Case 18:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there are some intellectual property issues with fashion images that need to be resolved. However, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "it's copyrighted creative work." Certainly, fashion photographs are copyrighted. But in the U.S. at least, fashion designs are not copyrightable. Certain parts of designs can be trademarked, like logos or distinctive stitching (think Levi's back pockets) that identify the brand of a product. Even still, it is in no way a violation of a trademark to photograph an item bearing that trademark for display/description of the product. (This is the same way you can legally take a photograph of a Coke bottle bearing the Coca-Cola trademark, even if a competitor cannot put a Coke logo on their product.) The design of an item of clothing, even if it is expressive, is not protected by U.S. copyright law, and this is why H&M and others can blatantly (and legally) copy runway designs in their products. Furthermore, I don't think that the design of a mannequin would be considered "creative" enough to warrant U.S. copyright protection. I can't comment on copyright/trademark law outside the U.S. Calliopejen 22:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I stand corrected ... fashion design is currently not eligible for copyright (I was probably confused by a discussion that took place in summer 2005 when those of us who had uploaded pictures of statues or sculptures were told we had to change to the statue template ... someone said there was an exception for architecture and fashion, which led me to believe it was copyrightable). However, according to the U.S. Copyright Office, the industry has long been trying to change that[1], for the very reason you mention (although my understanding is the cheap knockoffs you see at middle market stores carry their own caveat emptor problems — you can imitate the exterior look and colors of clothing from runway photos, but you can't figure out the fabric type or the stitching quite so easily that way — that have thus far deterred Congress from enacting such protections), using the law that extended copyright protection to vessel hulls as precedence (Interesting. What does this mean for our pictures of boats?)

According to Donna Karan's former assistant Josh Patner in Slate[2], it seems, there is that inherent defense against effective copying (plus the short innovation cycle)[3], but some designs are patented and it's possible that some could be trademarked. But photographs of patented designs or trademarked creations cannot inherently infringe as they would copyrights, is my understanding.

The copyright office says the industry has been trying to change this because they feel knockoffs like the "Prada" bags you can have for $25 or so apiece on the streets of Lower Manhattan Sundays are causing them economic harm. The copyright office says it wants to see evidence that knockoff clothing designs, as opposed to accessories, cause economic harm before it supports changing the law, and it hasn't yet. The longstanding reason for not doing so was that clothing was "useful articles" for which copyright protections are historically limited only to those features not serving a utilitarian purpose. However, fashion designs are chock full of features added purely for aesthetic affect, and with the increased economies of scale involved in mass trademark counterfeit these days[4], they may just get Congress to change the law. They would want only a three-year term, though. (Apparently the EU has had such laws since 1998[5], so we do have the Commons issue unless it's coverd by panorama freedom as well)

So, while we're in the clear now, we may not be in the future, and we need to be aware of that possibility and have a plan for how to deal with it.

One way we could probably do so is an article: Copyright status of fashion design. Daniel Case 03:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

One fair-use issue I think is important, that is much less easy to resolve, is images of models. Wikipedia policy, as it is currently being applied, is to remove commercially-produced images as replaceable fair use, and I'm not sure whether I agree with this (even though I've been tagging violating images). Although one can argue that such images merely are being used to show what the model looks like, they are also being used to show what the model looks like when modeling, which is different. A picture of Coco Rocha on the street is not the same as Coco Rocha being photographed by a fashion photographer, and no such image would ever be free. Calliopejen 22:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Commercially-produced images per se are not the problem. They would be OK if the copyright owner released all rights, released them into the public domain (see this photo of Stevie Nicks) or relicensed them under CC or GFDL, and some of us have made efforts to convince such copyright owners to do so. The issue that's creating this misconception (and I think that misconception is one of the many unpleasant unintended consequences the architects of this more strict fair-use policy didn't foresee, except some who I suspect of having this covert agenda to restore what they felt was Wikipedia's "amateurish charm" .. yes, one actually said that) is that copyrighted works are less tolerable off the fair-use whitelist if you can't demonstrate that they're not easy to replace, and most of the pictures we would want to use will not make the cut. So we will need to either wheedle a lot of copyright holders into giving up their pictures (not an easy thing to do in fashion, where photographs, at least recent ones, are valuable assets) or take our own.

The issue of photos of models modeling is a good one, a very fine line exists there, and I think you'd be OK using fair-use images of a model who's no longer active (unrepeatable historical event) but not a current one, as it could be argued that it is possible to get accredited to shoot pictures at a show or obtain free ones from someone who is (the saving grace being that they can release or relicense a lower-resolution version to us while still retaining copyright on a high-res one, the real money maker).

As for mannequins, yeah, there isn't creative work involved in duplicating a face with a cast. But IIRC the mannequin dressers usually paint the features and do their hair in a particular way, then pose and dress them and I'd say they could claim that constitutes a level of creativity high enough to make the mannequin eligible for the same copyright protections as publicly displayed three-dimensional art. Perhaps more so since it has a direct commercial purpose. I wouldn't agree, but I'm not a judge and I can't speak for anyone who is. Let's see what they say at Fair Use.

However I think featureless forms on which clothing is displayed could not be claimed to be copyrighted, so we'd be safe there. Daniel Case 03:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question about shows

Considering how lambasted we were by a fashion expert in a British paper a few years ago, it's good to see we're finally on the right track.

My question is, would this new community mind suggesting fashion shows and events to send photographers and journalists to? (We presumably need to work our way up over time [I've heard about the one foot spaces photographers have to stand on at some shows], starting small, but remember that we are the 10th most visited site in the world, I'm sure that gives us some miniscule bit of clout.) Any continent, any designer, whatever. I've had innumerable success finding photographers for the few event Wikinews has got into, many of the photographers better suited to runway than red carpet. -- Zanimum 15:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some articles you might want to take under your wing

Hello, glad to see your project in operation. I can see you've got lots to do but at some point you might want to look at the following:

  • Sportswear (a stub I created)
    • Added to project and rated as of top importance since it's a major apparel category
  • Stone Island, an article about an Italian label that has had a lot of unsourced opinion about football hooliganism added to it
    • As a clothing label, it belongs so it's been added.
  • Chav, about a stereotype, touches on fashions, an article that needs continual attention to keep it within the bounds of reason, you might decide it doesn't fall in the scope of your project but the more sensible people look at it the better
    • Yeah, this is a famously touchy article. I see no project wants to touch it, and frankly I don't think we should go first. If the fashion section gets separately spun off (and I think that article would be best split up to reduce the POV problems that regularly crop up), then we can take it.
  • Goth, and there are lots of other stereotype, youth cult articles - actually a lot are listed at Chav.

Best wishes. Itsmejudith 21:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Thought you may like to take on Elizabeth Hurley in your project. She may be suitable as she has launched her own swim ware range, also been the face of Estée Lauder, notable for wearing Versace and known worldwide. If I think of anymore I'll post something here. Eagle Owl 21:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Of course we want to take her on. Also, thanks for other links ... Estée Lauder Companies had not yet been tagged. Daniel Case

Just thought of a few more articles. Victoria Beckham had her own line I think called VB Rocks and is generally reported on her style of fashion, also I noticed that jeans were not tagged. Just some thoughts. Eagle Owl 14:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

All three done. Feel free to tag them yourself if you find more. Daniel Case 16:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Well I'm often not sure and wouldn't like to place a false or wrong rating so I just leave it to people who have seen more of a variety of fashion articles :). Speaking of that, I've found two more! Leonard Lauder and Valentino. If i'm very sure of an article I can rate then I'll tag it. Regards. Eagle Owl 19:36, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your help! FYI if you just put {{WikiProject Fashion}} on the talk page, you don't need to assign any ratings. Calliopejen 19:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Ah Ok! I'll have to do that in future! Thanks. Eagle Owl 13:48, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

User:The Anome just created List of fashion topics, which is helpful for finding articles to tag and for finding topics that haven't yet been written. Not sure if we would need this sort of list once our coverage gets better and everything is organized in categories, but for now it could be a great resource. Calliopejen 19:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of clothing

There was an edit war some months ago over categorization of historical clothing articles as History of fashion vs. History of clothing. We more or less forced through a compromise which I suggested (details here), which I am less than happy with now, as it seems very convoluted.

Since we are a small editorial team, I am quite willing to defer this entire discussion until a later time (perhaps handing it over to a dedicated History sub-team per Daniel's suggestion).

But some food for thought:

  • Should articles like Farthingale and Chemise be tagged for this project?
    • I've reviewed them both and added and assessed them. My take on the project scope is that every garment type belongs, whether they're of purely historical interest or not. The farthingale is an essential part of that huge poofy dress look, even if such items are not used to create that poofiness today. The chemise is still in existence as the article notes (you should have a section on, and photo of, a chemise dress. And nothing in fashion every really dies, does it? Daniel Case 03:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I think we need "clothing by era" overview articles a la Victorian fashion for Medieval, Baroque, Roccoco, Renaissance, etc., as those are the categories fashion historians use. I may tackle these next.
    • Yes, good idea. Consider how the cuisine articles are organized ... if medieval cuisine is going to be an upcoming Main Page FA, we should definitely see a corresponding medieval fashion article. Daniel Case 03:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Does anyone still active think we should NOT categorize the earlier History of Western fashion series articles as Category:History of fashion? Right now, they are so tagged after 1750 and not before, with one exception. (I wish I had had James Laver's comment that fashion as we know it arose in the 14th century handy when that edit war was on.)

- PKM 19:13, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't around when the original discussion was going on, but reading thru the discussion it doesn't seem like even what was decided on has been implemented. As a newcomer to the fashion category I found the scheme to be very confusing, especially because I still have no idea how Category:History of fashion and are being divided. Some time periods are in one, and some are in the other, but not in the way decided in the discussion or in any systematic way as far as i can tell. Also, some of the history of fashion subcategories include things besides clothes (e.g. Category:1980s fashion contains big hair, etc.) so it doesn't really make sense to put them in a history of clothing category. Calliopejen 18:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Our first featured article

I was looking at the FA log and noticed that Wonderbra had been promoted last week, so even though we had nothing to do with it as a project I tagged it so we at least have one FA within our scope.

Something to shoot for. Yes, it'll be even sweeter when we get one up there ourselves. Daniel Case 16:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mass tagging

I've been tagging tons of articles using AWB just based on the categories they're in. If I end up tagging articles you think don't belong, don't hesitate to remove the tag. Calliopejen 16:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, just as I was slapping myself on the back for assessing all the unassessed fashion articles. How Sisyphean ... "When at last the work is done/Don't sit down it's time to dig another one".

All the same this is sorely needed. I have been coming across articles every day that should be tagged. Daniel Case 17:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Just thought I'd let you know that I've tagged a load of articles to do with fashion for your project. Thanks and hope it's helpful. Eagle Owl 16:37, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

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