NAMING DRESS FABRICS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21562, 5 August 1933, Page 6 (Supplement)

NAMING DRESS FABRICS

FRENCH INGENUITY WORDS OF VARIED ORIGIN As France is the home of Paris, and Paris is the home of pretty clothes, it is perhaps not surprising to find that most of the materials wo see in our shop windows have French names. To give just a few at random —voile, faille, satin beauto, peau d'ange, aud, of course, crepe do chine —the very softsoundiug quality of their names proclaim them to bo of French origin. Yet in many cases the French have merely adopted names drawn from widely different sources. There is a city in Mcsoptamia which was once famous for a certain kind of material. Along came the French. " Mosul/' they thought to themselves, " the material should bo named after the city which manufactures it." So they gave it the name " inousseline '• and from that we get our word muslin. There are dozens of similar examples of how the French were the first to devise names for certain stuffs. Taffeta, for instance, comes from the French " taffetas," meaning plain silk; and this word the French took from " taftali," the Persian for " twist." Spain had a thin woollen cloth which she named " tiritana." The French called it " tartan," and from that we get our word for the Scottish plaid fabric. In Western Arabia tho peasants grew and spun what they called " gutun/' The French changed tho word to " coton," and from " coton," comes our word, which is almost the same. Besides changing names already in existence to suit their own pronunciation, the French also created many fabric names themselves. Thus we Ret filet lace from tho French word " filet," meaning a thread; foulard from the French word for a silk handkerohief; and corduroy from " cordo du roi," meaning " cord of the king." Then there are tho materials named after the cities of their manufacture —such as Chantilly lace and Valenciennes —• and materials which have their own little histories. Georgette, for instance, is named after tho French modiste, Madame Georgette, and cretonne after Monsieur Cretonne, its first maker. But in spite of all, there are still some fabric names which have nothing French about them. Among these are calico —coming from Calicut in India; linen, from tho . Latin word " linum," meaning flax; zephyr, from the Greek " zephvros," a soft west wind (whence the soft lightness of the material); and cambric, from the Flemish city Kameryk.