Color Me Articulate!

I spent a good portion of my day off on Monday clicking through scads and scads of spring runway coverage, and as I came across Gareth Pugh’s new collection I wished for the nth time for a product that would be of utmost use to young bloggers and fashionistas who are still learning all there is to know about the industry: a fashion-world pronunciation guide! I’m sure that sounds ridiculous to some of you, but to others it makes perfect sense. Don’t you hate it when you are completely familiar with a designer, his collections, his style, etc., and yet have no idea how to correctly pronounce his name? Take me and dear Gareth, for example. I almost dread the day when I enter into conversation about his current collection with a person who has some standing in the fashion world, lest I mispronounce his name and denounce my slight standing in the fashion world. Now can you see why I long for one of these? It would be so useful, because one of the most embarrassing things I can imagine would be mispronouncing the name of a designer, model, article of clothing, etc. to the face of someone like, oh… Anna Wintour. (Not that she is someone I think I have any chance of holding a conversation with in the near future, but you know what I mean!)  So in light of my current yearning for a book of fashion pronunciations, I have decided to help my dear readers who are in the same predicament with the first of a few installments to follow of the Color Me Articulate fashion pronunciation guide. I hope it helps, and keeps you from getting so hung up on a name that you stop looking at the collection to ponder how it is pronounced!

A few extremely common mispronounced terms and how they should be said are as follows…. 

• Balenciaga.    Bal-ahn-see-AHG-ah. 
• Chanel.          Everyone should know this: SHA-nel, not CHAN-el
• Dior.              DEE-or
• empire (as in the waist).   ahm-PERE 

Even more fun to pronounce, the names of today’s beautiful and bright models could daunt anyone who has not had the opportunity to hear each girl pronounce their names themselves. Here is an article on Fashionista.com on pronunciations for many of them! And if you notice at the bottom all the discussion and angst over the way “Lazareanu” is pronounced, fear not! Visit this post and listen to her say it herself on the video. Enjoy!