How to Pronounce Designer’s Names

The Wall Street Journal has an article that was long in coming for this fashion industry thing we love: how to pronounce designer’s names. The article gives phonetic spellings for each designer’s names. Some of the names are difficult to pronounce from an English speaker/reader’s perspective. A good chunk of the hard to pronounce names are Italian and French designers. Thing with fashion is that there are designers from Russia, Japan and other countries whose names are just as difficult if not moreso. So this primer is a godsend. If someone were to create an annual translation matrix I would buy it. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Jean Paul Gaultier (zhan paul GO-tee-AY), Alber Elbaz for Lanvin (al-BEAR el-BAHZ for lon-VAN), and Nicolas Ghesquière (NEE-ko-la guess-KYAIR).

Mamma mia! The Italian names can play tricks on you, too — such as Bulgari (BOOL-ga-ree), Ungaro (OON-ga-ro), Versace (ver-SAH-chay) and Zegna (ZANE-ya). And from Spain comes the tricky Loewe (LO-ee-VAY).

What they do that I am really happy about is clearing up the Ralph Lauren confusion. It’s pronounced just like the girl’s name…Lauren… for further clarification it rhymes with foreign. Not La-WREN. Read the full article here.

1 Comment to How to Pronounce Designer’s Names

Web Snob Links: ‘Cause I’m a Snob Offline, Too, by Fashion Writer KRiSTOPHER DUKES
March 14, 2008

[...] Q&A with model/actress/designer(/Starbucks barista?) Lou Doillon. » Papierblog is all about designer name pronunciation this week. We went over this already. Gucci: jew-chih. Chinese isn’t that hard to pronounce. [...]

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