Silhouette

Silhouette (pronounced sil-oo-et)

(1) A two-dimensional representation of the outline of an object, as a cut-out or representation drawing, uniformly filled in with black, especially a black-paper, miniature cut-out of the outlines of a person's face in profile.

(2) The outline or general shape of something.

(3) Any dark image outlined against a lighter background; the outline of a solid figure as cast by its shadow.

(4) To show in or as if in a silhouette; to cause to appear in silhouette.

(5) In printing, to remove the background details from (a halftone cut) so as to produce an outline effect.

(6) In motorsport, a category which limits modifications which change a vehicle’s side-silhouette.

1759: From the French à la silhouette, named after Étienne de Silhouette (1709–1767), controller general (1759) in the French government.  The surname was a gallicized form from Biarritz in the French Basque country and the southern Basque spelling would be Zuloeta, Zulueta, Ziloeta or Zilhoeta, the construct being zulo (hole, cave) + the suffix -eta (abundance of).  The word came widely to be applied to the artwork (which had existed since 1743 and sometimes called figure d'ombre (shadow figure) in 1859.  The rare alternative spelling is silhouet and the verb dates from 1876, derived from the noun.  Silhouette is a noun & verb and silhouetted & silhouetting are verbs; the noun plural is silhouettes. 

Lindsay Lohan with pony-tail in silhouette, smoking.

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (1721–1764 and usually referred to as Madame de Pompadour), was a member of the French court of Louis XV (1710–1774; King of France 1715-1774) and the king’s official chief mistress (that how things then were done) between 1745-1751 and a court favorite until her death.  One way the estimable Madame de Pompadour used her influence was in appointments to government offices.  While some of this was little more than nepotism and the spreading around of sinecures, one substantive position in the Ancien Régime was Controller-General (the treasurer or finance minister) and to this, de Silhouette, long recognized in France as something of a “wizz kid” in economics, was appointed early in 1759 with the concubine’s support.  The powers of controller-general made whoever held the job powerful but also vulnerable, the task of limiting the expenditure of the king not one likely to be popular in the Palace of Versailles but given the state of the royal exchequer after years of war, the need for reform was urgent.  Modern economic historians seem to regard the job he did as competent and orthodox example of rationalizing public finances and he managed both to reduce expenditure and institute a system of taxation which was both simpler to administer and more effective although probably more far-reaching were the long-overdue efficiencies he introduced in internal trade.

Silhouette of the Manhattan skyline.

Despite his success however, his budget for 1760 projected a huge deficit and a rising cost in debt servicing.  Seeing no alternative, he suggested adopting some of the methods of the detested English which involved collecting some tax from the previously exempt aristocracy, landed gentry and the richest of the clergy (of which there were a remarkable number.  That was his downfall and after less than nine months as controller general, De Silhouette retired to the country although, such was the urgency of things, his later successors were compelled to follow much the same course.

Prima Donna Deauville 100th anniversary bra (p/n 0161810/11); US$159.95 from Silhouette Fine Lingerie.

Why his name endures to describe the two-dimensional black-on-white images we know as silhouettes is obscure but there are two competing theories.  One is that his methods in finance and administration were all about simplifying what had over the centuries become a system of labyrinthian complexity so, a silhouette being about the simplest form of visual art, the association stuck.  A less sympathetic view is that he was thought an austere and parsimonious fellow so his name was linked to the simple, cheap black & white portraits which had since 1843 been popular with those unable to afford more elaborate forms such as an oil painting.  There’s also the suggestion the minimalist art was named as an allusion to his brief tenure as controller-general and finally, although there’s no evidence, some maintain de Silhouette decorated his office with such portraits.  Whatever the reason, the portraits gained their name in 1859, the year of de Silhouette brief ministerial career.

Silhouette of Mercedes Benz SLC (C107; 1972-1981, left) and 1979 450 SLC 5.0 in competition under the FIA’s silhouette rules (right).

Silhouette racing was introduced essentially because it was simple to administer.  There had been a variety of classes for “modified production” cars which permitted changes to bodywork to improve aerodynamic or allow wider wheels & tyres to be used but formulating and enforcing the rules was difficult; the regulations becoming increasingly precise, subject to variations in interpretation and cheating was rife.  What the introduction of a baseline silhouette for each competing vehicle did was provide a simple, literal template: if the car fitted through, it was lawful and if manufacturers wished to change a silhouette and produce a sufficient number of identical models to homologate the car for whatever competition was involved, that was fine.  Sometimes with variations, the silhouette formula has been widely adopted from classes as varied as series production to quite radical constructions with space frames or carbon-fibre monocoques and drive-trains unrelated to road-cars, the attraction always that the external skin continues to bear more than a superficial resemblance to a production model, something important to both manufacturers wishing to maintain a tangible link to their consumer offerings and an audience prepared willingly to suspend disbelief.

1972 Lamborghini P250 Uracco (left), 1977 Lamborghini Silhouette (centre) & 1984 Lamborghini Jalpa (right).

Despite the name, the Lamborghini P300 Silhouette (1976-1979) wasn’t designed with competition in mind; it was an attempt to produce an open-top model which could be certified for sale in the lucrative US market, then a market in which the company had no offering.  The Silhouette was Lamborghini’s first targa-top and was based on the P300 Uracco (1972-1979), a mid-engined, V8-powered 2+2 which was intended to compete with the Porsche 911 and Ferrari’s Dinos.  Neither the Uracco nor the Silhouette went close to matching the volume of either of its competitors and only 54 of the latter were made but both contributed to the company’s survival in the difficult 1970s, something which at times seemed improbable.  The Silhouette’s successor was the P350 Jalpa (1981-1988), the final evolution of the Uracco.  Lamborghini was now more stable and the Jalpa was a much improved product (although the interior always attracted criticism) which sold in reasonable volumes and, more importantly, was profitable.

Lamborghini Miura Roadster in metallic blue over white leather.

Although the Silhouette was the factory’s first targa to enter series production, a decade earlier, the factory had shown one exquisite creation in that vein.  The modern convention is to distinguish between a roadster (with a roof which wholly can be removed or folded back) and a targa (with a removable panel about the seats (a cat with left & right panels being a “T-top”)) but in what now seems a linguistic quirk, Lamborghini in 1968 displayed a (sort of) targa it called a Roadster.  It would be the only convertible Miura of any type the factory would build.  Although the P400 Miura's rolling chassis had generated much interest (and some scepticism from engineers who understood the implications of installing its mid-mounted V12 engine transversely) when displayed at the 1965 Turin Auto Show, when a pre-production prototype was used for the car’s debut at the Geneva show, it created as much of a sensation as the Jaguar E-Type (XKE, 1961-1974) arrival in the same city half-a-decade earlier.  The Miura is the spiritual ancestor of the “supercars” and “hypercars” of recent decades but while undeniably beautiful, at high-speed (it could exceed 170 mph (275 km/h)) the aerodynamic properties were dubious and the transverse engine induced handling quirks even experts found challenging to master.  Still, with close to 800 made over three series (P400, 1966-1968; P400 S, 1968-1971; P400 SV 1971-1973), it was a great success and the most desirable are now multi-million dollar machines.  It was quite an achievement for a concern which between 1948-1963 had built only well-regarded tractors and although the Miura wasn’t the company’s first car, it was the one which gained the marque the credibility to ranked with Ferrari and indeed greatly it influenced the mid-engined Ferraris and Maseratis of the 1970s as well as encouraging lower-cost imitators such as De Tomaso’s Mangusta (1967-1971).

Lamborghini Miura Roadster in metallic blue over white leather.

Perhaps counterintitutively the sensuous Miura was named after a breed of bull but it was one prized in bullfighting for its aggressive qualities so one can see the connection.  While a few claim to be cooks who helped stir the broth, the Miura’s lovely lines usually are credited to Marcello Gandini (1938–2024), a designer working at Giuseppe "Nuccio" Bertone’s (1914-1997) Turin-based Carrozzeria Bertone.  The one-off Miura roadster wasn’t exactly the first mid-engined coupé in a targa configuration, Ford building in 1965 five such GT40s (1964-1969) but these were pure racing cars and the first appeared a few weeks before Porsche in 1965 released the 911 Targa so it’s not surprising Ford dubbed the things “roadsters”.  The Fords were actually rolling test-beds for components and featured a number of differences from the more numerous coupés but nor was the Miura Roadster simply a coupé pulled from the assembly line and then de-roofed.  What Bertone did was a significant re-engineering, the roofline lowered by 30 mm (1¼ inches) with the rollover hoop lowered to reduce drag, the angle off the windscreen made more acute and the rear bodywork re-shaped with larger air-intakes for the V12, a more pronounced spoiler fitted to the rear deck, the tail-pipes re-routed and revised taillights were fitted.  Unseen were structural changes which reinforced the chassis, the box-section side members strengthened to compensate for the loss of rigidity created by removing the roof.  Inside, there were detail changes to the trim and switchgear.

Bertone’s Lamborghini Miura Roadster, Brussels Salon de L’Automobile, January 1968. Young ladies adorning exhibits were once a fixture at motor shows and this bevy was more fully clothed than many.

The reaction when the roadster was displayed at Brussels was little less enthusiastic than at Geneva two years earlier and dealers and the factory at once received enquiries about price and delivery dates.  Unfortunately, what the designers knew was that stunning though it looked, what the roofectomy had done was so compromise the structural rigidity that not even the strengthening done to the platform had been enough to make the Roadster a viable production car.  To achieve that, the whole shell would have had to be re-engineered and Lamborghini’s engineers knew that though achingly lovely, the shape and the transverse mounting of the V12 which made it possible were both flawed concepts and the future lay in longitudinally-positioned power-plants within an angular wedge.  Those conclusions would be rendered in physical form when the prototype Countach appeared at Geneva in 1971 and its lines can be seen still in twenty-first century Lamborghinis.

The ILZRO’s ZN 75 in iridescent green over tan leather.  The delightful “eyelashes” above the Miura's headlights unfortunately didn't appear on the P400 SV.

So the Roadster was destined to be a one-off curiosity but the show car subsequently had an interesting life.  In 1969 it was purchased by the New York-based ILZRO (International Lead Zinc Research Organization) which wanted something eye-catching with which to promote the use of the metals in automotive use.  Renamed ZN 75, it became a demonstration platform for zinc and lead applications in automotive engineering; it was repainted in an iridescent green, and various components were recast in zinc and lead-alloys, including trim, bumpers and even engine parts.  On the periodic table, the chemical element zinc has the symbol “Zn” while the “75” was a reference to 1975, the year the ILZRO and other industry groups were lobbying the regulators to set as the date by which new automotive materials and corrosion-resistance standards would become widespread.  The ILZRO’s campaign emphasis was on galvanization and anti-corrosion technologies, with the argument that by the mid-1970s, manufacturers would need extensively and more systematically to use zinc and such to meet with expectations of durability and comply with legislative dictate.  During the 1970s, was shown around North America, Europe, and Asia becoming one of the more widely seen Miuras and decades later, was restored to its original appearance.  Whether it even should be referred to as a targa is debatable because Bertone didn’t include a removable roof panel but over the years some Miuras have been converted to targas (with a removable panel) so the pedants can designate the original roadster as being “in the targa style”.   

Cameo

Cameo (pronounced kam-ee-oh)

(1) A technique of engraving upon a gem or other stone, as onyx, in such a way that an underlying stone of one color is exposed as a background for a low-relief design of another color.

(2) A gem or other stone so engraved; a medallion, as on a brooch or ring, with a profile head carved in relief.

(3) A literary sketch, small dramatic scene, or the like, that effectively presents or depicts its subject.

(4) As "cameo, "cameo role" or "cameo appearance", a minor part played by a prominent performer in a single scene of a production, originally un-credited yet deliberately obvious (a la Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980)).  In modern use, the sense has extended to any brief appearance, credited or not.

(5) In commercial use, a color of creamy neutral ivory, the name an allusion to the hue most associated with the jewelry.

(6) The industry slang for "cameo lighting", a technique used on stage or set usually by restricting the output of a spotlight to a narrower beam and the reverse effect of "silhouette lighting" (a complementary chiaroscuro technique).  

1375–1425: From the Italian cam(m)eo from the Old French camaieu, of uncertain origin; replacing late Middle English camew & cameu both direct borrowings from the Old French.  The ultimate root is held usually to be the Medieval Latin cammaeus (later camaeus), of unknown origin but both the Arabic qamaa'il (flower buds) and the Persian chumahan (agate) have been suggested as the source.  Cameo is a noun & verb and cameoed & cameoing are verbs; the noun plural is cameos or cameoes.

In the early fifteenth century, kaadmaheu, camew, chamehieux and many other spellings, all from the early thirteenth century in Anglo-Latin circulated, all meaning "engraving in relief upon a precious stone with two layers of colors" (such as onyx, agate, or shell and done so as to utilize the effect of the colors).  These fell soon from use as the words derived from the Medieval Latin cammaeus and the Old French camaieu prevailed.  By the nineteenth century, use extended to other raised, carved work on a miniature scale.  The transferred sense of "small character or part that stands out from other minor parts" in a plays etc is from 1928, a derivation from the earlier meaning "short literary sketch or portrait", first noted in 1851, a transferred sense from cameo silhouettes.  A cameotype was a small, vignette daguerreotype mounted in a jeweled setting, the first examples of which were produced in 1864.

Cameo & Silhouette

A classic, simple silhouette (left), a nineteenth century hardstone cameo in 18 karat yellow gold in the mid-nineteenth century Etruscan Revival style (centre) and a  silhouette with the detailing which became popular in the late 1700s (right).

As artistic representations, there's obviously some overlap between a silhouette and a cameo but they are different forms.  A silhouette is inherently a two dimensional rendering of a shape (typically a portrait but they can be of any scene or object) which classically were simple and of a solid colour (usually black) on a contrasting (usually white or cream) background.  Originally, there was no detailing of features but that soon became common.  Silhouette portraits were highly popular in the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries and the form was especially popular with untrained (indeed unskilled) amateurs because of the cheapness and simplicity of the form, a finished work requiring little more than two sheets of paper (black & white), a pair of scissors and a pot of glue.  A cameo differs in that it is three-dimensional, an embossed or raised piece, usually in relief.  The most prized antique cameos are those engraved on semi-precious gemstones, agate, forms of onyx, shells and lava but in modern use synthetic materials are not uncommon and, being small and able to be rendered in a single piece, can be 3D printed although the quality of these doesn’t (yet) match something hand-carved.

Cameo.com

Launched in March 2017, cameo.com is a US-based distribution & content-sharing website, its niche being a platform on which celebrities and others can sell personalized video messages to fans or anyone else prepared to pay, the site claiming more than thirty-thousand sources are available.  The price per clip is said to extend from US$5 to US$3000 and operates as a dynamic supply and demand curve, the price said to rise or fall in response to elasticity in demand, all determined by an AI algorithm which is predictive (able to anticipate a rise in demand and adjust prices accordingly).

For US$400 (or US$20 for a DM), one can receive a personalized video message from Lindsay Lohan.  The service limits the text to two-hundred and fifty (250) characters so economy of language is encouraged.  The client is able to request the theme and possible topics might include relationship counselling, fashion advice, career management & international relations.  In most cases, it seems not necessary to approach this with undue urgency, many of the celebrities available on Cameo.com "for a limited time!" have been listed for some years.

Lindsay Lohan at the Mean Girls (2024) premiere, New York, January 2024.

Lindsay Lohan’s cameo in the 2024 (musical) re-make of Mean Girls (2004) attracted comment for a number of reasons but what most impressed many was the fee, reported by entertainment industry magazine Variety as US$500,000.  While that sum is unverified, what has been confirmed is that her cameo (in the math competition scene) required four hours on set; given the simplicity of the math, Variety didn’t bother printing its calculation of the hourly rate but given the 2004 production was shot over three months for which Ms Lohan was paid a reputed US$1 million, it’s clear inflation alone doesn’t account for the differential.  Still, any commodity is worth only what a buyer is prepared to pay and it’s a specialized supply & demand curve because there’s only one Lindsay Lohan.

Ms Bakalova (standing in mint-green dress, left) and a recumbent Mr Giulianu on the bed (right): Screen grab from Borat 2 (2020).

For better or worse, there’s also only one Rudy Giuliani (b 1944) and the now disbarred lawyer who once was attached to Donald Trump’s (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) legal team (a usually busy institution with a high churn rate) in 2020 made an unexpected (and unwitting) cameo appearance in the mockumentary film Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (clipped usually to Borat 2). Directed by Jason Woliner (b 1980) and starring Sacha Baron Cohen (c 1971) as the intrepid Borat, a television personality from the Republic of Kazakhstan, the film was a sequel to the highly successful Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) directed by Larry Charles (b 1956).  In what proved more a “walk-out” than “walk-on” supporting actor role, Mr Giuliani’s brief career as a guest star had the then 76 year old being interviewed in a hotel room with Borat’s supposedly 15 year-old daughter, played by Bulgarian actor Valcheva Bakalova (b 1996 and thus then 24).  While the pair were together in the bedroom, Mr Giuliani was filmed lying on the bed and reaching with his right hand (he is right-handed) into his trousers at which point Borat bursts in, shouting: "She 15!  She too old for you!”  Subsequently, vehemently Mr Giuliani denied he had at any point been “inappropriate”, claiming he was “tucking in [his] shirt after taking off the recording equipment".  There appears no record of the industry every having used “crotch mics” but he was emphatic so that must have been where it was placed.

Empire

Empire (pronounced em-pahyuhr (sometimes om-peer if affecting to speak of things historically French)).

(1) A group of nations or peoples ruled over by an emperor, empress, or other powerful sovereign or government: usually a territory of greater extent than a kingdom, as the former British Empire, French Empire, Russian Empire, Byzantine Empire, or Roman Empire.

(2) As First Empire, the period of imperial rule in France under Napoleon Bonaparte, 1804-1815; as Second Empire, the period of Imperial rule under Napoleon III, 1852-1870 (a decadent period).

(3) A government under an emperor or empress.

(4) The historical period during which a nation is under such a government (often initial capital letter).

(5) Supreme power in governing; imperial power; sovereignty.

(6) Supreme control; absolute sway.

(7) A powerful and important enterprise or holding of large scope, especially one controlled by a single person, family, or group of associates.

(8) In horticulture, a variety of apple somewhat resembling the McIntosh.

(9) In fashion, of the style that prevailed during the first French Empire, in clothing being characterized especially by décolletage and a high waistline, coming just below the bust, from which the skirt hangs straight and loose (usually initial capital letter).

(10) As Empire State, a term for New York since 1834.

(11) In architecture and design, noting or pertaining to the style of architecture, furnishings, and decoration prevailing in France, emulated variously in various other places circa 1800-1830; characterized by the use of delicate but elaborate ornamentation imitated from Greek and Roman examples or containing classical allusions, as animal forms for the legs of furniture, bas-reliefs of classical figures, motifs of wreaths, torches, caryatids, lyres, and urns and by the occasional use of military and Egyptian motifs and, under the Napoleonic Empire itself, of symbols alluding to Napoleon I, as bees or the letter N (often initial capital letter).

1250–1300: From the Middle English empire (territory subject to an emperor's rule (and, in general "realm, dominion"), from the Anglo-French & Old French empire & empere (rule, authority, kingdom, imperial rule; authority of an emperor, supreme power in governing; imperial power), from the Latin imperium & inperium (a rule, a command; authority, control, power; supreme power, sole dominion; military authority; a dominion, realm) from inperare & imperāre (to command) from parāre (to prepare; to make ready; order).  The construct of the Latin imperare was in- (in) (from the primitive Indo-European root en (in)) + parare (to order, prepare) (from the primitive Indo-European root pere- (to produce, procure).  A doublet of empery and imperium.

In English, the early understanding of the word was defined substantially by the knowledge (however imperfect) of the Persian and Roman (especially the latter) empires of Antiquity and though never etymologically restricted to "territory ruled by an emperor", for entirely logical reasons it did tend to be used that way.  The phrase "the Empire" (which in the UK and the British empire almost exclusively implied "the British Empire" (dating from 1772)) previously would have been supposed to be a reference to the Holy Roman Empire.  Officially, the British Empire devolved into "The Commonwealth" in 1931 because of the constitutional implications of the Statute of Westminster (and the changing world view) but opinion is divided on when it really ended, most dating it from Indian independence in 1947 (when George VI ceased to be George RI (Rex Imperator (king-emperor)) and became George R) while others claim (less plausibly) that in a sense it endured until Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997.  Nobody claims that still holding the Falkland Islands an empire makes.

Always a civilizing project, the Roman Empire stopped short of Ireland and Scotland.  One has to draw the line somewhere.

Despite the modern habit, etymologically, empire was never restricted to "territory ruled by an emperor" but has been used that way for so long a meaning-shift may have happened.  In political theory, an empire is an aggregate of conquered, colonized, or confederated states, each with its own government subordinate or tributary to that of the empire as a whole but history is replete with accidents and anomalies.  Japan’s head of state is an emperor although no empire exists and the most often quoted remark about the Holy Roman Empire has long been Voltaire’s bon mot that it was "...not holy, nor Roman, nor an empire".

Long pre-dating the era, the empire-line (sometimes called empire-silhouette) dress is most associated with the French First Empire (which lasted from 1804 when Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor, to his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815) and although the look endured longer than the political construct, beginning in the 1820s, skirts widened and waistlines lowered to an extent most were no longer identifiable as the style.  The look became linked to the First Empire because it was Napoleon's first Empress, Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763–1814) who popularized it in Europe and there are fashionistas who when speaking of the style, will pronounce it as a quasi-French om-pire.  In England, Emma, Lady Hamilton's ((1765–1815); mistress of Lord Nelson (1758-1805) and muse of the artist George Romney (1734-1802)) adoption of the style was much imitated, the cross-channel exchanges of fashion continuing uninterrupted even when a state of war existed between London and Paris.  The English or American fashions of this time tend respectively to be termed "Regency" (referring to the Regency of the Prince of Wales, 1811-1820) and "Federal" (referring to the decades immediately following the American Revolution).

Gisele Bündchen in Dior empire-line dress, Academy Awards Ceremony, Los Angeles, February 2005.

Empire-line dresses featured a waistline considerably raised above the natural level with skirts which vary from the slim and columnar to the swishy and conical.  In its pure form it was characterized by (1) a columnar silhouette without gathers in front, (2) some fullness over the hips, (3) a concentration of gathers aligned with a wide centre-back bodice panel and (4), a raised waistline which reached usually to just below the bust but (occasionally) as high as the armpits.  Mass-production of the design was possible only because the industrial revolution made available new fabrics and other materials at volume and an attainable cost.  Empire- line proved appealing to women without an ideal figure because, by adjusting the parameters of the various components, a seamstress could flatter a wide variety of body types, disguising and emphasizing as required, able to create also the illusion of greater height. 

The empire-line inherently needs a lot of fabric which offers designers the possibility of using bold patterns, especially florals, which can't be displayed to the same effect in styles with less surface area.

Traditionally, most clothing had relied on the shape of the human body but new forms of corsetry, including strong yet delicate shoulder straps to provide the necessary structural integrity, combined with materials such as mull, a  soft, sheer Indian white muslin, allowed designers to create wearable outfits in which the neoclassical influence was obvious, the silhouette imitating the Classical statutes of Antiquity.  Such constructions had before existed for the rich but they were heavy, hot, rigid, uncomfortable and very expensive.  Sadly, the relative freedom women enjoyed proved short lived, evolving by the 1820s into something less simple and notably more restrictive, the hourglass Victorian styles much more prevalent in high-fashion by the mid-nineteenth century, a trend which lasted until the First World War.  The ideas of empire-line were revived for the less-constricting clothing popular in the 1920s and, although coming and going, it’s never gone away and, being somewhat hippie in its look, gained a new following in the 1960s.

Empire-line wedding dresses (left to right) by Dana Harel, Savannah Miller, Two Birds & LoveShackFancy.  Although the design and structural details differ between these, all four can be reduced to the same mathematics.  The wedding dress business seems to be one part of the industry where blonde models seem not to enjoy their usual natural advantage, photographers preferring dark hair, better to contrast and define the edges of all that white fabric.  

Lindsay Lohan in empire-line dress, Paris, 2011.

Today, empire-line dresses are still often worn and the style gained a new audience from their used in the Mad Men television series, set in upper-middle class US society during the 1960s.  One place where they've long inhabited a stable niche has been the Western wedding dress where the technical aspects of the design, the fitted bodice, high waist, and loose-fitting skirt allow the creation of silhouette that’s flattering and forgiving for a wide range of body shapes, once a genuine selling feature for brides with child who, in less accepting times, wished to conceal the bump.  However, even though the empire- line is almost uniquely  ideal at shifting focus from the waistline, it can be cut in a way to complement the slender, delivering a cinched waist.  In either case, the same mathematics are at work, the goal being to elongate and define and by creating the visual effect of the narrowest point appearing just under the bust, it can either (1) trick viewers into seeing a longer torso, diverting attention from the midriff and hips or (2) emphasise the waistline of the truly slender, making it perfect also for the petite or short.

Shadow

Shadow (pronounced shad-oh)

(1) A dark figure or image cast on the ground or some surface by a body intercepting light.

(2) Shade or comparative darkness, as in an area.

(3) As “the shadows”, darkness, especially that coming after sunset.

(4) A spectre or ghost.

(5) A mere semblance of something.

(6) A reflected image, as in a mirror or in water (now rare and restricted to literary or poetic use).

(7) In painting, drawing, graphics etc, the representation of the absence of light on a form.

(8) In art, the dark part of a picture, either representing an absence of illumination or as a symbolic device.

(9) In architectural depictions & renderings (as “shades and shadows”) a dark figure or image cast by an object or part of an object upon a surface that would otherwise be illuminated by the theoretical light source.

(10) In Jungian psychology, the archetype that represents man's animal ancestors; an unconscious aspect of the personality.

(11) In pop-psychology (1) a period or instance of gloom, unhappiness, mistrust, doubt, dissension, or the like, as in friendship or one's life or (2) a dominant or pervasive threat, influence, or atmosphere, especially one causing gloom, fear, doubt, or the like (often expressed as “shadow of fear”, “shadow of doubt” etc).

(12) A person who follows another in order to keep watch upon that person (in law enforcement, espionage etc).

(13) To overspread with shadow; to shade.

(14) To cast a gloom over; to cloud.

(15) To screen or protect from light, heat, etc; to provide shade.

(16) To follow and observe (a person).

(17) To represent faintly, prophetically etc. (often followed by forth).

(18) In democratic politics, (of or pertaining to a shadow cabinet or shadow minister) a system whereby an opposing politician formally is appointed to be responsible for matters relating to a particular minister’s areas of authority.

(19) As a modifier (shadow ban, shadow ticket, shadow docket, shadow price, shadow inflation etc), something effected unofficially or without public notice; characterized by secrecy or performed in a way that is difficult to detect; a clandestine approach.

(20) In typography, the “drop shadow” effect applied to lettering.

(21) An uninvited guest accompanying one who was invited (an obsolete, Latinism).

(22) In human resource management, the practice of new appointee accompanying an incumbent during the working day, so as to learn the job.

(23) In computer programming, to make (an identifier, usually a variable) inaccessible by declaring another of the same name within the scope of the first.

(24) In computing, in the graphical Workplace Shell (the WPS, successor to the Presentation Manager (PM)) of the OS/2 operating system, an object representing another object.

Pre-900: From the Middle English noun shadwe, shadu, shadue, shadowe shadow, from the Old English sċeaduwe, sċeadwe & sceadu, the oblique case forms of sċeadu (shadow, shade; darkness; protection).  The Middle English verbs were shadwen, shadwe, shadu & shadue (to shade, provide shade, cast a shadow, protect), from the Old English sceadwian (to cover with shadow, protect) (all derivative of the nouns), from the Proto-West Germanic skadu, from the Proto-Germanic skadwaz (shade, shadow), from the primitive Indo-European skeh & ḱeh- (darkness).  Contemporary forms included the Old Saxon skadowan & skadoian and the Gothic (ufar)skadwjan (to (over)shadow).  Similar forms in other Germanic languages included the Old Saxon skado, the Middle Dutch schaeduwe, the Dutch schaduw, the Old High German scato, the German schatten and the Gothic skadus (shadow, shade).  Shadow is a noun, verb & adjective, shadower is a noun, shadowdy, shadowless & shadow-like are adjectives; the noun plural is shadows.

The shadow-box was a protective display case, usually in the form of interlocking squares and wall-mounted was first advertised in 1892.  The term shadow-figure was a synonym of silhouette, dating from 1851.  Eye-shadow was a term invented for the commercial products which came onto the market in 1918, providing a convenient packaged product to achieve the look women (and apparently not a few men) had been creating for thousands of years.  Shadow-boxing was first noted in 1906, an update of the earlier (1768) shadow-fight.  The verb foreshadow (indicate beforehand was a figurative form, the idea apparently of a shadow thrown before an advancing material object as an image of something suggestive of what is to come.  It’s familiar also in the forms foreshadowed & foreshadowing and was used as a noun since at least 1831.  Although the meanings were different, in Old English there was forescywa (shadow) & forescywung (overshadowing).  The adjective shadowy was ultimately from late fourteenth century shadwi & shadewy (full of shadows, shaded (and also “transitory, fleeting, unreal (resembling a shadow)”).  From very late in the eighteenth century it conveyed the sense of “faintly perceptible”.  In The Old English there was sceadwig (shady) and the modern alternative is shadowiness but unfortunately, the marvelously tempting shadowous never caught on.  The noun shadowland came from a work of fiction in 1821 and meant “an abode of ghosts and spirits”, adopted from the early 1920s to mean an indeterminate or unhappy place”.  The noun shadowless was from the 1630s and meant literally “no shadow” the implication being of things ungodly or supernatural.

In idiomatic use shadow often appears.  To be a shadow of one's self is to have suffered some trauma meaning one is a lesser person than before.  One afraid of one’s own shadow is one of a skittish, nervous disposition.  If something is beyond a shadow of a doubt it is something certain.  The old expression sanctuary in the shadow of the church was not exactly literal: to seek sanctuary from the agents of the state by entering a church meant one had to pass through the door.  It referred to the noting that church soil in England was under the authority of the pope in Rome, not the King.  To throw (or cast) a shadow over someone is to seek to deny them visibility; to keep them out of the limelight.

1969 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow.

In continuous production until 1980, the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow was introduced in 1965 and with over 30,000 (including the less common but substantially identical Bentley T2 variant) built, it remains the Rolls-Royce made in the greatest volume.  Although there was little about the model which was cutting-edge, it was the first truly modern Rolls-Royce, forsaking the separate chassis, drum brakes and styling which used updated motifs from the 1930s; it was the template with which the company would underpin its products for the rest of century.  Although the huge Phantom V & VI limousines would continue to use a separate chassis until 1990, their annual production was measured (usually at most) in the dozens and it was the Silver Shadow and its derivatives which were the company’s bread and butter.  The adoption of unitary construction meant the end of the line for many specialist coachbuilders and some of the relics of the industry were absorbed by the factory, the Mulliner name still used by Bentley to adorn the even more expensive “special order” vehicles the 1% need to convey the message of wealth something "off the shelf" can’t manage.

1967 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow two-door saloon by James Young (left) and 1971 two door saloon by Mulliner Park Ward (MPW) (right).

However, on the Silver Shadow platform, James Young, one of the last surviving coachbuilders, did build 35 two-door saloons before the business was shuttered in 1968.  The quirk of the James Young Silver Shadows is truly they were just the standard car with the rear-doors removed and the front units lengthened and it suffered because the competition was the two-door designed by Mulliner Park Ward (MPW) which by then was a specialist division within the factory.  With greater resources and access to all the technical data, the MPW effort was more imaginative and judged universally to be more attractive, its “cow-hip” style (nobody ever suggested using the "cokebottle" appellation Chevrolet & Pontiac had a few years earlier made a trend) carried over when the car was in 1971 re-named Corniche and listed as a regular production model.  The Corniche proved the longest-lived of all the Silver-Shadow family, the convertible (even Rolls-Royce eventually gave up calling such things drophead coupés (DHC)) remaining available until 1996.

Applied with different colors in different ways, eye shadow can achieve various effects.  Lindsay Lohan demonstrates.

The archeological evidence suggests eye shadow is one of humanity’s oldest forms of make-up, worn (usually but not exclusively by women) for thousands of years, and the preparations have included oils and a variety of substances to create the desired colours including minerals & vegetable extracts although charcoal is thought to have been one of the most accessible and popular materials.  The usual rationale for applying eyes shadows is that it’s essentially the same technique as chiaroscuro, a trick used by painters, photographers & film-makers to use real & emulated light and dark to achieve the perception of depth.  Because shadows are inherent to the shape of the eye-socket, eye shadow can be use to accentuate or soften the effect and, if applied with expertise, can even alter perceptions of size and shape.  With a sympathetic choice of shade, the color of the eyes can also be used as a contrast, some taking advantage of colored contact lens to create a look impossible with their natural irises.  Done well, there's no other way to describe the combination of eye shadow and purple contact lens that "eye catching".  Eye shadow can draw attention to the eyes, most trying to make them appear larger, more vibrant, or more expressive.  Despite the name, eye shadow is a flexible product and often used to create a visual illusion on body parts such as the cheeks or décolletage.

Shadow Volumes

Example of shadow mapping with Python summarized by FinFET.

In computer graphics, shadow volume is a technique used to render realistic shadows in three-dimensional (3D) renderings which is employed primarily when dynamic, interactive real-time movement is needed, most obviously in gaming.  Essentially, generating shadow volumes involves determining those addresses in a scene which need to appear as shadows, then rendering them accordingly.  The technique relies on the concept of extruding the boundaries of shadow-casting objects to create a "shadow volume" that represents the space occluded by the object.  In static scenes this was always easy (if once time-consuming) to achieve but when objects nwere moving, until recent decades, the graphics capabilities of computers were insufficient for them to be rendered in anything close to being real-time.  The process essentially is:

(1) Determining shadow casters: The rendering engine identifies objects in the scene capable of casting shadows by calculating the object's position and shape and its relationship to the positions of light sources.

(2) Creating shadow volumes: For each shadow-casting object, the engine constructs a shadow volume based on extending the object's silhouette (defined by the address of the boundaries) in the direction opposite to the light source.  The silhouette is determined by the math of the boundaries viewed from the perspective of the relevant light sources.

(3) Intersecting shadow volumes: The shadow volumes are then intersected with other objects in the scene to determine which parts of those need to be inside or outside the shadow.

(4) Rendering shadows: The shadow volumes are assembled, rendered with darker hues or modified shading techniques to simulate the shadowed regions.

Shadow volumes can be implemented using more than one different algorithm, the most commonly used the z-pass and the stencil buffer.  All techniques are computationally intensive and have been made possible by the advances in the sheer power and complexity of modern graphical processing units (GPUs).

The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)

The handy Nirsoft Utilities includes a Shadow Copy viewer.

Microsoft introduced Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) with Windows XP (2001).  It worked in conjunction with the High Performance File System (HPFS) and allowed for the creation of point-in-time snapshots or copies of files and volumes on a disk.  What was in 2001 still something of a novelty for most users was the snapshots were taken while the files were in use, enabling access to previous versions or the restoration of files to a specific state, even if they have been been modified or deleted.  The process sequence was:

(1) Snapshot creation: VSS creates a snapshot of a volume or individual files on a disk.  This snapshot represents a "shadow" of the data at a moment in in time.

(2) Copy-on-write mechanism: As files are modified or deleted on the original volume, the VSS utilizes a copy-on-write mechanism.  It stores the original data in the snapshot, allowing users to access the unchanged version while the new changes are written to the live volume.  The lag induced by this can be measured with the appropriate but except with the largest files or on a busy network, it’s not usually something which affects the user.

(3) Shadow copy storage: The shadow copies are stored in a separate location on the disk, typically in a hidden system folder. The storage space occupied by is system-managed by the system, older copies automatically deleted as space is demanded for newer versions.

(4) User accessibility: Users can access the shadow copies through various means, most obviously the "Previous Versions" tab in file properties or the "Previous Versions" feature in Windows Explorer. These interfaces allow users to browse and restore files from a previous point in time.

Shadow copies provided one of the first forms of dynamic file backups for most users and were a convenient form of data recovery without the need of third-party software or external devices.  At scale, similar processes are used by software by companies such as StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect which system administrators can configure in a way that the potential data-losses can be minimized to windows as short as a few minutes.  Combined with off-site backups on large capacity media, it’s still a pest practice approach to data preservation.

Lindsay Lohan's strangely neglected film Among the Shadows (Momentum Pictures, 2019) was also released in some markets as The Shadow Within and it's not known what prompted the change (although there was a film in 2007 called The Shadow Within).  Given the two titles under which the film was distributed have quite different meanings, presumably either the title is incidental to the content or equally applicable.  A dark and gloomy piece about murderous werewolves and EU politicians (two quite frightening species), perhaps both work well and no reviewer appears to have commented on the matter and given the tone of the reviews, it seems unlikely there'll be a sequel to resolve things.