FASHION Magazine

Word: Uniqlones

Meaning: People who dress head-to-toe in the plain, quality, identikit clothes of Japanese mega-chain Uniqlo. I thought I’d invented this neologism and remembered it again while reading a piece on the company in one of London’s weekend style mags (I was lagged and forget which one it was). But, no, it was also the title of a New York Magazine feature last year. Eff you, New York!

Usage: “That ad agency party was a total attack of the Uniqlones.”

Word: Ink

Meaning: In this case, slang for “tattoo.”

Usage: “Let’s get inked,” we imagine Lady Gaga said to LA Ink artist Kat Von D.

Word: Austerity

Meaning: In economics, an un-fun time of deficit-cutting through strictly curbed spending; in fashion, a modest, almost severe style of dress.

Usage: “The public will only accept continuing austerity if it is seen to be fair.” ― Vince Cable, U.K. business secretary, via the Guardian

Word: Chiaroscuro

Meaning: In art, the use of contrast―light versus shadow―to create depth in a two-dimensional work.

Usage: “We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion trying to emerge into something solid, something real.” ― Libba Bray. I’ve never read anything she’s written, but I love this quote.

Word: Denouement

Meaning: From the French word for, literally, untying knots, “denouement” is used to signify the narrative resolution of a tangled cinematic or literary plot.

Usage: “That denouement untied things up nicely.”

Word: Festigue

Meaning: Sometimes used during Christmas and similar holidays to describe a weariness from all that cheer, it can also mean indescribable tiredness during any kind of festival, especially a 10-day city-ruling film one.

Usage: “An intimate soiree at Lounge IX to celebrate the remaking of yet a horror movie starring an ex-model and a procedural-drama TV actor? No thanks, I’m a little festigued.” ― me

Word: Meet-cute

Meaning: A romantic-comedy trope in which two future lovers meet in a wildly unlikely and thus totally fateful way.

Usage: “Oscar and Amy fall in love. And what a Meet Cute they have! On their first evening together, they go out for the evening, their taxi explodes (yes, explodes) and they run in the rain and wade in the mud and find a restaurant where they eat tuna melts that make them sick and they run outside and hurl. This is the Meet Cute as Meet Puke.” ― Roger Ebert in his review of Three to Tango, 1999.

Word: Madgesty

Meaning: The singular world-reigning effect of the one, the only Madonna.

Usage: To quote (and slightly alter) Ovid, “Madgesty and love do not consort well together, nor do they dwell in the same place.”

Word: Fanart

Meaning: Unsurprisingly enough, fanart (or fan art) is amateur art based around someone/something of which the artist is a huge fan.

Usage: “I’m your biggest fan, I’ll make fanart until you looove me.”

Word: Mangénue

Meaning: A male ingénue; an “it boy.”

Usage: “In a town filled with dewy mangénues like Zac Efron and Robert Pattinson, is there any actor who producers can turn to for the Steve McQueen biopic?” — Defamer

Word: Swag

Meaning: Swag has two main contemporary definitions: 1) Valuable stuff you got for free, or stole; and 2) appearance and self-presentation, usually in a rap subculture we could call “swagster rap.”

Usage: “Flow colder than February with extraordinary swag.” ― T.I., “Swagger Like Us.”

Word: Hi-fi

Meaning: Short for “high fidelity,” a.k.a. high-quality sound reproduction. But in ’50s conventional slang, it means a record player.

Usage: “Play it again on the hi-fi, Sam.” — Yes, I just effed with Casablanca.