Fritinancy

Word of the Week: Ghillie

Ghillie: A sportsman's attendant or guide. Also spelled gillie. From Scottish Gaelic gillie: a boy or servant.

By extension, a ghillie is also a lace-up shoe of the type worn by Scottish and Irish dancers...

Source: Amazon.

...and comfort seekers...

Source: Zappos.

...and fetishists.

Source: Rosa Shoes.

But when you Google "ghillie," the first and most abundant results are for ghillie suit, a type of camouflage worn for centuries by hunters, soldiers and, more recently, paintball enthusiasts.

Source: SniperGhillies ("Si, Hablamos Español!")

Any resemblance to Chewbacca, a Yeti, or Birnham Wood come to Dunsinane is probably intentional.

My favorite take on the ghillie suit is this artist's interpretation, a colorful homage to IKEA (video).

BldgBlog, a serious blog about architecture and landscape, recently published a post about ghillie suits that includes many wonderful photos and this rumination:

Whatever you might think of wildlife slaughter ... how unbelievably interesting would it be to get Ghillie suit designers, deep wilderness hunters, and some landscape theorists together for a long afternoon of spatialized discussions. Throw in some anthropologists studying hunter-gatherer tribes and maybe some military camouflage field testers – and, at the very least, you've got yourself an interesting book proposal.

My thanks to graphic designer, illustrator, and fine artist Susan Bercu, who discovered the Urban Camouflage video and introduced me to the wide world of ghillie suits.

Bonus Bad Name: Shiva

Tremble in awe before the Shiva sandal from German shoemaker Think! (exclamation point theirs):

It's awfully festive for the seven-day Jewish period of mourning.

And it doesn't look like anything the Hindu god Shiva (the Destroyer of the World) would be caught reincarnated in.

Shoe-style names often exist in a parallel universe governed by designers' egos and littered with zany mis-translations. Readers of this blog may remember the Stupa (which bore the name of a Buddhist tomb), the Weirda (a decidedly un-weird, indeed pedestrian slip-on), and the Nervous (a driving shoe!).

So, sure, there's plenty of precedent. But I still think Think! should have thought twice before choosing this name. The shoe may fit, but the name doesn't.

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P.S. None of this commentary is meant to disparage the quality of Think! shoes, which in my experience is superb. I do, however, have another complaint about the company's nomenclature. Think! assigns a word name to each last (the shape on which the shoe is built) and a frustrating five-digit string of numbers to differentiate style variations. This particular Shiva sandal, for example, is actually the Shiva 82523. Then there's the Julia 82337, the Julia 82340, the Julia 82330, and so on. This naming convention may be useful within the company (I'm guessing the first number is a seasonal code), but it's mystifying, memory-defying, and pointless for customers.

Bad Brand Names: Final 2008 Edition

There's just enough time left on the calendar to acknowledge (and mock) this year's notable naming misfires. Tomorrow: a look at brand-naming trends of 2008.

XSensible. When you sell unapologetically orthopedic-looking "comfort" shoes (see photo, left), it's redundant and self-defeating to brand them "sensible." After all, for generations of shoppers, the phrase "sensible shoes" has meant only one thing: "Why, yes, I have taken a vow of celibacy!" Granted, XSensible is a Dutch company, and it's possible that "sensible" may have different associations over there, perhaps something closer to Jane Austen's "sensibility"—deep emotional feeling, as opposed to left-brain "sense." But not in the United States. The "X" in the brand name, I'm guessing, has to do with the product's chief benefit—stretch leather uppers—and may represent a pun on "extensible." The only thing worse than sensible shoes is a pun on "sensible shoes."  (Photograph of the XSensible "Florida": Footwear Etc.)

Samsung Rant. Definition of rant: "a wild, incoherent, emotional articulation"; "pompous or pretentious talk";  "harangue"; "loud, bombastic declaration."  As if there aren't enough cellphone goofuses in public spaces already. Seriously, Samsung: do you really need to encourage this? (More on mobile-phone naming trends tomorrow.)

Ndoi.  Casual shoemaker Tsubo (the brand name supposedly means "pressure point" in Japanese) makes a decent product and sometimes comes up with decent names. The Tsubo Acrea is the most comfortable high heel on the planet, and its name is pronounceable, elegant, and appropriate: acr- suggests height. But with "Ndoi," a "bowling shoe-inspired" men's casual shoe, I fear someone in the Tsubo creative department hit the sake bottle a little too heavily. It's unpronounceable and (as far as I can tell) meaning-free. And the Ndoi isn't alone: other Tsubo men's styles include the Utan, the Focas, the Warra, and the Korph. They all sound like Klingon to me. (I could have devoted this entire post to peculiar shoe names; be grateful that I'm limiting my selection to XSensible and Ndoi.)

bumGenius. I love this company's story and tagline: "Cloth diapering made easy." I applaud its efforts to change perceptions about the "disposability" of diapers. (Full disclosure: In my health-journalist days, I wrote several articles about the hazards—to the environment and to public and private health—of disposables.) I like that the company was started by women and is based in the U.S. (Colorado). And I sort of get where they're going with the name: a little shock, a little flattery ("You're a genius!"). Trouble is, although some Americans are aware the "bum" is slang for "derriere" in the U.K., most are not. I think many consumers will be puzzled that a diaper company has named itself after a brilliant yet unstable out-of-work guy instead of, you know, conveying some sort of benefit. And what's with that dumb lower-case "b"?  

Grāpple. Basic naming rule: If you have to rely on diacritical marks like the macron over the a to clarify pronunciation, your brand name isn't working. Additional hints ("Say Grape-L") only make you seem more desperate. Then there's the bigger question: Does the world really need an apple that tastes like a grape? I'm still grappling with that one.

Honda Fit. Loath as I am to add to automakers' grief in this year of living indebtedly, I am nevertheless compelled to point out the weirdness of this choice. Yes, I suppose it could mean "fit as a fiddle." But can you blame me for thinking "Oh, there goes the Honda Epilepsy—in fits and starts as usual!" every time I see one? Worse still is the brand's tagline: "The Fit Is Go!" Reviewer Joe Wiesenfelder of Cars.com observed in May of this year: "Maybe I'm a pedantic editorial type, but it seems to me that a word is missing. 'The Fit is a go' would have worked in 2007, but it seems a foregone conclusion now." As a head-scratcher, that slogan is right up there with Fiat's "You Are. We Car," from 2007. (Note: The Fit was introduced in the United States in 2007, but it was completely redesigned and given a big marketing push in September of this year.)*

Bonus! The questionable name that's most likely to be co-opted by the adult film industry: the Large Hadron Collider, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2008.

Other bad brand names reviewed here this year: Cuil (which according to a recent TechCrunch post is wading into the dead pool), Pussy (a "premium energy drink"), Vergina (a beer from Greece), FullChoke (men's cologne), We Olive (an olive oil store), GOOP (Gwyneth Paltrow's website), YOOX (an upscale e-tailer), and Theality (maternity fashion).

Want a second opinion? Check out Minneapolis naming agency Pollywog Inc.'s best and worst brand names of 2008. I've written about two of the Pollywog picks myself: Sue magazine and the Volkswagen Tiguan.

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* For much more about car names, especially American car names, read this blog post by Michael Bérubé. The comments are full of inspired suggestions for new names: If there's a Ford Probe, why can't there be a Chrysler Catheter? (Hat tip: Orange.) For my money, the weirdest car name ever remains the (actual) Great Wall Wingle,

Get Thee to a Dictionary

If you're going to go churchy on us, watch thy pronouns.

Thou: subject ("Thou said WHAT?")

Thee: object ("Yeah, I'm talkin' to thee.")

Thy: possessive ("I see by thy outfit that thou art a cowboy.")¹

For shame!

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¹ Update: As the Rev. Michael Penn Moore pointed out in an e-mail, that sentence should begin "I see by thine outfit..."Thy becomes thine in front of an open vowel. Aren't you glad English dropped the second person informal several centuries ago?

(Photo taken at Bay Street shopping center, Emeryville.)

No Title

Another reason to love Zappos:

Fred Mossler

No Title

Fred joined Zappos.com in 1999 and was recently promoted to the position of "No Title" from Senior VP of Merchandising because we couldn't think of a title for him. His "No Title" position enables him to oversee a variety of departments at Zappos, including merchandising, marketing, creative services, product presentation, Zappos University, help desk, and outlet operations.

Prior to Zappos, Fred spent over 8 years at Nordstrom.

This Is Not a Shoe

No, says Sruli Recht, its creator: it is the Hvalsforhúðsskór Dorks, a men's boot made of "minke dork" in "caramel sandstone" with a 2" raw leather Cuban heel.

And here is the descriptive copy:

hunter and hunted, charred end cycles of left over limits.
holes in these things less for the breathing,
chasing that whale, too late in the evening,
"It's the new dolphin - a stand in for the ozone, and that hole itself? is just the next blackman".

Also excellent for achieving the Sarkozy Effect.

Mr. Recht, who calls himself  "a European nomad," was born in Jerusalem in 1979 and eventually settled in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he now dreams up and produces his surrealistic footwear and clothing. The prose, I am willing to bet, is likewise all his own.

Take this item, described as:

The Bullet-proof Handkerchief

For the Promiscuous Idealist whom

Lives in Elegant Danger

Whom? Yes, youm.

Or Death Sequence, about which Recht writes:

This is a seal skin dress. Put away your adopted social morals and enjoy it.

Go. Read. (Especially the About page.) Send an admiring e-mail. But don't attempt to place an order. This is not a store.

(Via Jon Carroll, who paid tribute to Recht in his column last month.)

Cintra and the Red Soles

Cintra Wilson on the impossible shoes of Christian Louboutin:

The Christian Louboutin boutique is a small, low-key spectacle, dominating a black-and-chrome storefront on Madison Avenue. Imagine the footwear wing of Frederick’s of Hollywood, if it had tottered away to seduce the Wonka factory: wall-to-wall red carpet, mirrors, disco sequins and modular Lucite cubbies all showcasing a loopy series of variations on lickably shiny, nosebleed-high hooker pumps (the cheap American cousin of which is commonly known, in fetishistic eBay galleries, as “the Pleaser”).

Hence, the mystique: Louboutin pumps look right at home in the rarefied air betwixt chrome poles and mirrored ceilings, only they are around $900. This makes them not hooker shoes, but merely French.

I have mentioned the fabulous Cintra before. She just keeps getting better. Any week in which one of her "Critical Shopper" pieces appears in the Times Thursday Styles section is a good week in which to be alive.

Photo of Christian Louboutin pumps from Kuwait-Style.com.

Names in the News: Fashion Week Edition

Stupa: I've written previously about mystifying shoe names and descriptive copy. Now behold the Arche Stupa in ambre nubuck (photo on the left) and consider a name that is both mystifying and, well, stupid. A stupa (Sanskrit for "heap") is a mound containing the relics of a Buddha or a saint. In other words, it's a tomb. With sacred overtones. So we've got a death association and a sacrilegious connotation and--at least to speakers of English, Spanish, and Italian--a "stupid" soundalike. Three strikes. Arche shoes in general are beautifully crafted (in France) and very comfortable, and the Stupa is nice enough to look at, but, given the bad name, I can't say I'm surprised that it's currently on sale for almost half its original price. By the way, what is up with Arche calling the material of its soles "milk-fed Havea rubber"? First of all, the Latin name of the rubber tree is Hevea brasiliensis, not "Havea." And no matter how much milk you "feed" it, nothing magical will happen. It's the sap that's milky, not the fertilizer.

YOOX: They sell some top-drawer discounted designer duds at YOOX: Donna Karan, Martin Margiela, Dries Van Noten, Alexander McQueen, Prada. And they probably have a few yuks around the water cooler. But that doesn't save "YOOX" from being one of the silliest, ugliest names in fashion history. At least it wasn't randomly selected, according to the (God help us) DNA page:

The name itself reveals the personality of YOOX.COM: Y and X, the male and female chromosomes, flank the ‘zero’ from the binary code, the fundamental language of the digital age.

So logical! And yet so dumb!

YOOX is headquartered in Bologna, and the names of its "team" members (no CEO or president in evidence) are largely Italian, so I'm wondering whether "YOOX" sounds hip or American or something to people named Paolo and Giancarlo and Valentina. A certain distance from English fluency, and indeed from reality itself, might account for prose like this:

Once inside YOOX.COM you experience the alchemy of a creative cyberspace, where technology meets women and men to explore a new concept of entertainment via shopping. 

Theality: Speaking of alternate realities, take a look at this brand's landing page on Zappos (the manufacturer's About Us copy is slightly different):

Theality was conceived in 2005 to meet the needs of fashionable pregnant women and it is unlike any other maternity clothes on the market. With unique designs, high quality stretch fabrics, and detail-oriented embellishments, theality has leaped to the forefront of maternity fashion.

The word "theality" is the fusion of the words "theory" and "reality", which is the philosophy behind the line. Theality clothing is the fusion of what designers are showing on the runway and making it the reality for the pregnant woman.

Theality clothing is a must for any pregnant woman who is concerned with comfort as well as maintaining her sense of style. With the strong belief that moo-moos [sic!] and unflattering prints should be universally banned from maternity fashion, theality has designed a line of clothing that begs the question, "What's your theality?"

Where to begin with this? Let's just leap to the forefront. For starters, some words--like "theory" and "reality"--just shouldn't be blended. The sense of neither word is retained, and the resulting blend is confusing. I saw it as "The Ality" (what's an Ality?); others may try to pronounce it as "theel-tee." Second, there's already a successful Theory fashion brand. Third, the Theality logo (which I've been unable to reproduce here) for no apparent reason highlights the "e," the "a," and the "i." My brain's been on infinite loop trying to crack that code.

Then there's the copy, which is painful when it isn't laughable; I suspect it was written by a non-native English speaker and never copyedited or proofread. A few of the lowlights:

• "It is unlike any maternity clothes on the market." Clumsy and ungrammatical. And the use of "and" to connect the two clauses in that sentence is a dead giveaway of an amateur writer.
• "A fusion of the words 'theory' and 'reality,' which is the philosophy behind the line." How can "a fusion of the words" be "a philosophy"?
• "And making it the reality for the pregnant woman." Awkward.
• FYI, the Hawaiian garment is a muu-muu, not a "moo-moo."
• "...begs the question, 'What's your theality?'" Everyone gets "begs the question" wrong, but that's no excuse to use it here to mean "asks the question." And the question being asked is a pointless one.

Bonus bad-name link: Read about Acne Jeans at Beauty Marks.

Every Woman a Queen

Patricia Hearst Shaw--remember her? with the Symbionese Liberation Army? and the roles in the John Waters movies?--was in the spotlight once again this week, this time in the genteel environs of the 132nd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, where her champion French bulldog took home the Best of Opposite Sex prize.

But enough about Patty. Let's talk about the dog. Specifically, the dog's name. On paper she's "Shann's Legally Blonde." But she picks up her ears and smiles a doggy smile when you call her "Diva."

Then again, who doesn't? Once upon a time, the term (which means "goddess" in Italian) was applied highly selectively, and with all due respect, to opera megastars such as Maria Callas. These days, everyone with a pair of X chromosomes is a diva. We're so democratic! Divacratic, even.

Consider this selective sampling from the brand-o-sphere:

Diva Cup®--"not a tampon, not a pad"--is a reusable silicone "menstrual solution," and without being overly graphic, I'll just say it's the least diva-esque product imaginable. (Full disclosure: I have used a similar product, and ladies, it truly is the answer to your prayers. Go get one.)

Divabetic wants to "makeover [sic] your diabetes." The organization sponsors events that are "your gateway to finding answers, feeling inspired and learning new ways to live well with diabetes while enjoying an exciting mix of free beauty and fashion services." The name was one of those coup de foudre things that happens when divas walk among us: "While attending a tribute concert to Luther Vandross ... [organization co-founder] Max [Szadek] coined the word 'divabetic' after watching Ms.Patti LaBelle reveal in her own sassy way that she was living with diabetes." Sign me up, girlfriend!

DIVA is "Europe's only mainstream lesbian magazine."

Hotel Diva, in San Francisco's theater district, calls itself a "Sexy Boutique Hotel" (caps sic). According to the hotel's designer, "hotels are about ... sleeping in a new bed, great linens, using as much hot water as you want, room service, getting up late, and having sex in the middle of the day." Now that's direct marketing.

Zappos, the online shoe store, features four pages of shoes code-named Diva, including the Gel-Dirt Diva 2 running shoe and the Diaper Dude Divas Diaper Bag. (Divas do diapers?)

"The Diva" is Old Navy's name for its lowest-rise jeans.

Diva Furniture sells furniture in Los Angeles and Seattle.

Viva Diva, a clothing boutique not far from where I live, gets points for rhyming.

Diva Espresso, which has four Seattle locations, gets points for referring to itself as "she" ("Diva paid her growing-pains dues...").

Surf Diva offers surfing lessons in San Diego.

Then there's the sisterhood of blogging divas: Cooking Diva, Techie Diva (pink! pink! pink!), Retail Design Diva (which had a nice post a few months ago on why store mannequins no longer smile).

Autism Diva hasn't posted in a while. I hope everything's OK.

And oh so much more: Diva Limousine (but of course!), Diva cooktops (divas cook?), Diva jewelry...

Still not quite sure about this diva thing? Take the Blogthings "Are You a Diva?" quiz (sample question: "Do you often cancel plans at whim?"). Then fine-tune the picture with the "What Decade Diva Are You?" test.

Finally, in honor of Patty Hearst and her champion canine companion: not one, not two, not three, but four "Diva Dog" brands on just the first page of a Google search: the Diva Dog collar collection, The Diva Dog "celebrity dog clothes," The Diva-Dog Bowtique, and Diva Dogs (UK).

P.S.: You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll roll around in something ripe when you see Diva Dog: Pit Bull on Wheels. From the plot synopsis:

The story of Coral, who was left permanently paralyzed by a hit-and-run driver. She touched and inspired people wherever she went, and now her legacy lives on as the official spokesdog for disabled animals everywhere.

Happy Valentine's Day, all you divas, human and otherwise. And smooches to you dudes, too.

Hat tip for the title of this post: Huey P. Long and Randy Newman.

Photo: Union Street clothing boutique, San Francisco.

Flinching from Fashion

"Oooohh, cute boots," I said covetously as I spotted the Macy's ad on page A3 of today's New York Times. Then I read the copy:

New! Cringe covered wedge ankle boot with buckle detail.

I shrank back in alarm. Cringe covered?

Now, I know a thing or two about the language of footwear. I've been writing copy for a San Francisco shoe retailer for 15 years or so, and I can blabber with some authority about breasted heels, bicycle toes, and D'Orsay pumps. (I also know where highly esteemed cordovan leather comes from: the hindquarters of a horse.) And I know that shoe designers are prone to flights of fancy in naming and describing their creations. (See also what the Manolo has to say about shoe naming.)

But I'd never heard "cringe" applied to shoes. Ever.

I do have a theory, though.

First, what exactly does "cringe" mean?

My Shorter Oxford English Dictionary says it comes from an Old English word that meant "yield" or "fall in battle." The most common contemporary meaning is "to shrink the muscles of the body involuntarily; shrink; cower." It has overtones of "behaving in an obsequious or fawning manner."

No doubt technology journalist Mark Stephens had all those squirmy meanings in mind when he chose the nom de nerd Robert X. Cringely.

Back to the Times ad. The Biviel boot depicted is a Macy's Herald Square exclusive, so I can't show you what it looks like. But take a look at the heel of this similar Biviel boot (from Zappos):

 

See how a single piece of leather envelops both the shaft and the heel? I suspect that some sort of leather-shrinking process was involved. And that, in attempting to describe the style, the Macy's copywriter had an issue with the word shrink, or thought it sounded too pedestrian for this rather unusual feature, and so reached for the thesaurus. And came up with what must have seemed like a logical, even Frenchy-looking, synonym: cringe.

But while shrink can be either neutral ("reduce in size") or negative ("shrink in fear," "shrink in disgust"), cringe is always negative. Unpleasant, even.

This reminds me of my first secretarial job. I was told I would be taking minutes of our group's meetings, and I thought "minutes" lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. So I titled my first report "Moments."

Of course, I was 7 years old, and the group was my Brownie troop. Since then, I've learned (a) that secretarial "minutes" comes from "minutiae," not the unit of time, and (b) that the thesaurus is sometimes my friend ... and sometimes it needs to stay on the bookshelf.