I absolutely would not blame you if, upon reading a show review that Leandra or myself wrote mentioning something along the lines of, “a beaded yoke,” you thought we were referring to a decorated egg center and along the way, made typo. No one uses “yoke” colloquially. Similarly, among the cholesterol conscious, no one uses yolk, but at Man Repeller we do seem to have a thing for eggs.
The circle of life.
A yoke, in its most basic explanation, is a panel of fabric that goes across the shoulders. In sewing, it helps add structure to the fabric sewn below it. Though it’s not excluded to this thought process (nor is it excluded to tops alone) I most typically think of yoking when it comes to cowboy shirts. Here’s an example:
That white part broken up with the maroon piping — that’s a yoke.
To settle a debate, I texted my mom-who-knows-all, “What’s your definition of a yoke?” She more or less said the above description then goes, “You know, like an ox yoke.”
Oh. That actually makes some sense.
But fashion, as we’ve already established, can be confusing. We’ve also established that it’s kind of supposed to be. That’s what makes it exciting. But while fluency is in no way required to participate in the conversation, it’s satisfying to understand the language.
So! In the slideshow above you’ll find a list of words that we’ve been known to use which, for the sake of understanding what the hell we’re talking about when describing clothes — if you’re into that sort of thing — might be good to know. They’re not formal definitions, but you’ve seen our Dick, right? Shun-ary. Our Dick-shun-ary. Cool. Consider this the happy medium.
(And in the comments section, let us know other ones you need broken down to paillette town!)
All Runway Photos via Vogue Runway; collages by Emily Zirimis.
