22 Sep Dictionary Dressings
Femke de Vries
By investigating the legitimacy of the current vocabulary used in the design and fashion industry, ABC Dictionary Dressings boldly contributes to how the design and fashion industry is being perceived, or for this matter, defined. In search of an alternative, more semantically relevant and innovatively up to date terminology, this volume uses archival images and fragments of texts, to testify to the limitations of the existing vocabulary which is normally used to represent factual and rational information about the characteristics and utility of the defined items, but is oblivious to the stylistic dimension of the designated items. Take the Dutch definition of a glove for example: Handschoen: bekleding van de hand (literally translating to “Glove: covering of the hand”). A hand, however, can be covered in a myriad of other ways.