Categories of clothing terminology
At its broadest, clothing terminology
may be said to include names for:
Classes of basic garments:
shirt,
coat,
dress,
suit,
underwear
Contemporary and historical
styles
of garments:
frock coat,
t-shirt,
doublet
Parts of garments:
sleeve,
collar,
lapel
Styles of these:
juliette sleeve, Peter Pan collar
Clothing details:
pocket,
french cuff,
zipper
Traditional garments:
cheongsam,
kilt,
dirndl
Fashions and "anti-fashions":
preppy, New Look, hip-hop, rational dress
fabrics:
denim,
wool
Colors and
dyes:
madder red, indigo, isabella
Sewing
terms:
cut, hem, armscye, lining
Patternmaking
terms:
sloper
Methods of manufacture:
haute couture,
bespoke tailoring,
ready-to-wear
Retailers'
terms:
Size ranges:
missy, plus size, big-and-tall
Retail
seasons:
back-to-school, holiday, resort
Departments:
special occasion,
sportswear, bridge fashion
Degrees of formality:
formal wear,
bridal,
business casual
Persistence of clothing
terminology
Despite the constant introduction
of new terms by
fashion
designers, clothing
manufacturers and marketers,
the names for several basic
garment classes in English
are very stable over time.
Gown,
shirt/skirt,
frock, and
coat
are all attested back to
the early medieval period.
Gown
(from medieval Latin
gunna) was a basic 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.
By the eighteenth century
gown had become a
standard category term for
a woman's
dress,
a meaning it retained until
the mid-twentieth century.
Only in the last few decades
has gown lost this
general meaning in favor
of dress. Today the
term gown is retained
only in specialized cases:
academic
dress or cap
and gown,
evening
gown,
nightgown,
hospital
gown, and so
on.
Shirt and skirt
are originally the same
word, the former being the
southern and the latter
the northern pronunication
in early Middle English.
Like gown, shirt
is becoming a specialized
term in Britain, though
it retains its general meaning
in the U.S. (see
Shirt).
Coat remains a
term for an over-garment,
its essential meaning for
the last thousand years
(see
Coat).
