Crikey!
I'm gobsmacked! “Bespoke” crosses the pond.
by
Howard Richler
Some
years ago while on a trip to England, I encountered some words and
expressions that made me realize the importance of being bilingual
in my mother tongue. For example, I asked someone in London where I
could find an ATM. She looked nonplussed but her companion
translated, “he means a “hole-in-the-wall.” Also, I discovered
that in some English locales a speed bump is referred to as a
“sleeping policeman” and that the British enjoy a bevy of
insulting terms for people such as “swot” (boring, studious
student), “chav”(bad-mannered person), “anorak”(anal-retentive
person) and “poncey” (effeminate) that have limited currency on
this side of the Atlantic. I also recall being perplexed upon seeing
a sign announcing “bespoke industrial units” and another
advertising “bespoke shoes.” I got a clearer idea of the term
when I saw yet another sign that read “bespoke tailors.”
“Bespoke,”
however, is now ubiquitous in North America. For example, on November
7th we read in the
National Post that
“Sean Connery's Bond was the Errol Flynn of the swinging '60s, a
dapper swashbuckling Saville Row type in bespoke Turnbull & Asser
shirts.” Often, the usage transcends the boundary of Saville Row
as in the following from the Globe and Mail:
“Luxury
travel lovers flocked to the Spoke Club for an intimate event with
Mr. & Mrs Smith, a bespoke
booking service for custom travel property.”
“Bespoke”
has also taken the USA by storm. In the New York city area there are
over twenty “bespoke” companies including “Bespoke Surgical,”
“Bespoke Barber Shop,” and at least one store simply called
“Bespoke.” Also, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office lists over
40 active registrations and applications for “bespoke” brand
names with the majority of the patents being filed in the past two
years. If you have a USA bespoke product or service to offer - act
quickly. One person wanted to use Bespoke.com as their web address
but as this belonged to Bespoke Software, he had to settle for
Bespoke Innovations.
The
OED defines bespoke
as “ordered to be made, as distinguished from READY-MADE”; also
said of a tradesman who makes goods to order.” Strangely, the
word's first citation in 1755 refers to a play but by the middle of
the 19th century
the word was most often employed in the shoemaking trade to refer to
custom shoes. An 1866 citation from Chamber’s
Encyclopedia says that “the shoe-making
tradition is divided into two departments-the bespoke and the
ready-made or safe business.” The tailoring industry adopted the
word to describe the cloth customers select in advance for their
suits. The cloth thus became “spoken for” or “bespoke.”
Bespoke
long ago shed its tailoring sense in the UK and on my
aforementioned jaunt I recall seeing an unlikely sign in Yorkshire
advertising “bespoke fish & chips.” However, in North America
the same process of applying the term to a variety of sundry products
has occurred This can be verified by googling “bespoke
tricycles,” “bespoke underwear” “bespoke toilet seats”
“bespoke condoms” and “bespoke legal advice.” So far, there
isn't a listing for “bespoke criminals.”
So why
has “bespoke” become such as a popular marketing word? Justin
Watters, the co-founder of the Bespoke Investment Group LLC based in
Harrison, New York says “Like a bespoke tailor investors measure
risk tolerance needs and outlook in order to develop a strategy that
fits their unique needs.” According to Mark-Evan Blackman, a
professor at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, “bespoke
has.. started seeping into our consciousness as a term for our gold
standard, as a male equivalent of couture.” So, it would seem
“bespoke” has become a marketing buzzword to convey the
superiority of a product or service you are offering. I suppose that
the term “custom” has become so commonplace that it is often
replaced by the fresher “bespoke” to entice customers.
Soon,
no doubt, the revived “bespoke” will lose its freshness; overuse
will make everyone jaded as to what it signifies and marketeers will
have to find another high-faluting word to bamboozle consumers.
Howard
Richler's bespoke book From Happy to
Homosexual and other mysterious semantic
shifts will be published by Ronsdale Press
next spring.
