From the chapter titled "Fashionspeak" in The Meaning of Sunglasses: And a Guide to Almost All Things Fashionable, by Hadley Freeman:
"Homage" is probably the most well known bit of fashionspeak. A conveniently trussed-up word for "blatant copy," it can be used without the niggling fear of litigation, and it has a soothing sheen of intellectualism, suggesting that the designer spent long, noble hours in some dusty library, studying the technique of his forebears and then respectfully weaving it into his own work, as opposed to desperate plagiarism due to a dearth of new ideas. So, for example: "Marc Jacobs's homage to Courrèges was perhaps a little over-literal." Thus, it becomes a criticism in a compliment inside a totally daft remark, showing the kind of linguistic ingenuity that would make Derrida bow down in respectful awe.
It's overstating just a tad to say that Freeman rips the lid off the fashion industry, exposing the seamy side of the pretty-peddling biz, but she does have a merry time making shish kebab out of sacred cows. Cast an eye over some of the other chapter titles in this slim, witty book:
Accessories: going to hell in a handbag
Blouses: not so librarian now, are they?
Coats: stuck at the nexus between dull and stressful
Get: fashion that girls do and boys don't
Jacobs, Marc: genius or what?
Ruffles: from French ingénue to Bozo the Clown
Vanity, and the joys thereof
Freeman is deputy fashion editor London's Guardian newspaper, where she writes a fashion advice column whose tone of brisk authority--not to mention her command of the dependent clause--is seemingly belied by the author's photograph, in which she appears to be about thirteen and a half.
(Post title: homage or what?)
Re your homage, I blogged about this a while ago: http://www.yankeepotroast.org/archives/2007/06/raymond_carver.html
It's perfect.
Posted by: Karen | May 02, 2008 at 11:24 AM
What do you think Hadley Freeman (no relation!) means by "trussed-up" in the first quoted line, where she calls "homage" a "conveniently trussed-up term"? I just looked through the OED and couldn't see a sense that fits; is this now fashionspeak for "fancy"?
Posted by: Jan Freeman | May 02, 2008 at 11:38 PM
@Jan: Hadley Freeman uses a number of terms unfamiliar to me that I assume are examples of BrE. ("Po-faced" is one.) I took "trussed-up" here to mean "artificial" or "forced," the way a turkey would be trussed up after being stuffed. But I could be wrong.
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | May 04, 2008 at 09:43 AM
On further consideration, I think I see what's going on here. "Truss up" can apply to garments that "confine or enclose" (OED), or "bind or tie up." "Hence contemptuously in reference to dress," the OED goes on. (Why the "hence"? Why contemptuously? Who knows?)
Hadley Freeman's "trussed up" seems to be taking the original "laced up like a turkey" as if it meant "dressed up" or "tarted up" -- disguised in a deceptive way. Found a few more cites in this vein on Nexis.
Here are some of the OED's examples:
1610 G. FLETCHER Christ's Vict. I. lxv, Now she would sighing sit,..in sack cloth trust. 1712 BUDGELL Spect. No. 277 7 How ridiculously..we have all been trussed up.., and how infinitely the French Dress excels ours. 1736 AINSWORTH Lat. Dict. (1783) I, To truss up the hair of one's head, caesariem, vel comam, in nodum colligere. 1833 J. HOLLAND Manuf. Metal II. 32 The combs used by the lower class of females for trussing their hair.
Posted by: Jan Freeman | May 06, 2008 at 02:32 PM
Thank you, Jan! Impressive research!
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | May 06, 2008 at 03:15 PM