Cage

Cage (pronounced keyj)

(1) A boxlike enclosure having wires, bars, or the like, for confining and displaying birds or animals or as a protective barrier for objects or people in vulnerable positions (used in specific instances as battery cage, bird-cage, birdcage, Faraday cage, tiger cage, fish cage etc).

(2) Anything that confines or imprisons; prison and figuratively, something which hinders physical or creative freedom (often as “caged-in”).

(3) The car or enclosed platform of an elevator.

(4) In underground mining, (1) an enclosed platform for raising and lowering people and cars in a mine shaft & (2) the drum on which cable is wound in a hoisting whim.

(5) A general descriptor for any skeleton-like framework.

(6) In baseball (1) a movable backstop for use mainly in batting practice & (2) the catcher's wire mask.

(7) In ice hockey and field hockey, a frame with a net attached to it, forming the goal.

(8) In basketball, the basket (mostly archaic).

(9) In various sports which involve putting a ball or other object into or through a receptacle (net, hole), to score a goal or something equivalent.

(10) In fashion, a loose, sheer or lacy overdress worn with a slip or a close-fitting dress.

(11) In ordnance, a steel framework for supporting guns.

(12) In engineering (1) various forms of retainers, (2) a skeleton ring device which ensures the correct space is maintained between the individual rollers or balls in a rolling bearing & (3) the wirework strainers used to remove solid obstacles in the fluids passing through pumps and pipes

(13) To put (something or someone) into some form of confinement (which need not literally be in a cage).

(14) In underwear design, as cage bra, a design which uses exposed straps as a feature.

(15) In computer hardware, as card cage, the area of a system board where slots are provided for plug-in cards (expansion boards).

(16) In anatomy (including in zoology) as rib-cage, the arrangement of the ribs as a protective enclosure for vital organs.

(17) In athletics, the area from which competitors throw a discus or hammer.

(18) In graph theory, a regular graph that has as few vertices as possible for its girth.

(19) In killer Sudoku puzzles, an irregularly-shaped group of cells that must contain a set of unique digits adding up to a certain total, in addition to the usual constraints of Sudoku.

(20) In aviation, to immobilize an artificial horizon.

1175–1225: From the Middle English cage (and the earlier forms kage & gage), from the Old French cage (prison; retreat, hideout), from the Latin cavea (hollow place, enclosure for animals, coop, hive, stall, dungeon, spectators' seats in a theatre), the construct being cav(us) (hollow) + -ea, the feminine of -eus (the adjectival suffix); a doublet of cadge and related to jail.  The Latin cavea was the source also of the Italian gabbia (basket for fowls, coop).  The noun (box-like receptacle or enclosure, with open spaces, made of wires, reeds etc) typically described the barred-boxes used for confining domesticated birds or wild beasts was the first form and form circa 1300 was used in English to describe "a cage for prisoners, jail, prison, a cell".  The noun bird-cage (also birdcage) was in the late fifteenth century formed to describe a "portable enclosure for birds", as distinct from the static cages which came to be called aviaries.  The idiomatic use as “gilded cage” refers to a place (and, by extension, a situation) which is superficially attractive but nevertheless restrictive (a luxurious trap) and appears to have been coined by the writers of the popular song A Bird in a Gilded Cage (1900).  To “rattle someone's cage” is to upset or anger them, based on the reaction from imprisoned creatures (human & animal) to the noise made by shaking their cages.  The verb (to confine in a cage, to shut up or confine) dates from the 1570s and was derived from the noun.  The synonyms for the verb include crate, enclosure, jail, pen, coop up, corral, fold, mew, pinfold, pound, confine, enclose, envelop, hem, immure, impound, imprison, incarcerate, restrain & close-in.  Cage is a noun, verb and (occasional) adjective, caged & caging are verbs (used with object) and constructions include cage-less, cage-like, re-cage; the noun plural is cages.

Wholly unrelated to cage was the adjective cagey (the frequently used derived terms being cagily & caginess), a US colloquial form meaning “evasive, reticent”, said to date from 1896 (although there had in late sixteenth century English been an earlier cagey which was a synonym of sportive (from sport and meaning “frolicsome”)).  The origin of the US creation (the sense of which has expanded to “wary, careful, shrewd; uncommunicative, unwilling or hesitant to give information”) is unknown and despite the late nineteenth century use having been attested, adoption must have been sufficiently hesitant not to tempt lexicographers on either side of the Atlantic because cagey appears in neither the 1928 Webster’s Dictionary nor the 1933 supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).  John Cage (1912–1992) was a US avant-garde composer who, inter alia, was one of the pioneers in the use of electronic equipment to create music.  He’s also noted for the 1952 work 4′33″ which is often thought a period of literal silence for a duration of that length but is actually designed to be enjoyed as the experience of whatever sounds emerge from the environment (the space, the non-performing musicians and the audience).  It was an interesting idea which explored both the definitional nature of silence and paralleled twentieth century exercises in pop-art in prompting discussions about just what could be called "music".

The related forms jail and gaol are of interest.  Jail as a noun dates from circa 1300 (although it had by then been used as a surname for at least a hundred years) and meant "a prison; a birdcage".  It was from the Middle English jaile, from the Old French jaiole (a cage; a prison), from the Medieval Latin gabiola (a cage (and the source also of the Spanish gayola and the Italian gabbiula)), from the Late Latin caveola, a diminutive of the Latin cavea.  The spellings gaile & gaiole were actually more frequent forms in Middle English, these from the Old French gaiole (a cage; a prison), a variant spelling thought prevalent in the Old North French, which would have been the language most familiar to Norman scribes, hence the eventual emergence of gaol which emerged under that influence.  It’s long been pronounced jail and the persistence of gaol as the preferred form in the UK is attributed to the continued use in statutes and other official documents although there may also have been some reluctance to adopt “jail” because this had come to be regarded as an Americanism.

The Mortsafe

A mortsafe.

The construct was mort + safe.  Mort was from the Middle English mort, from the Old French mort (death).  Safe was from the Middle English sauf, safe, saf & saaf, from the Old French sauf, saulf & salf (safe), from the Latin salvus (whole, safe), from the Proto-Italic salwos, from the primitive Indo-European solh- (whole, every); it displaced the native Old English sicor (secure, sure).  In the case of “mortsafe”, the “mort” element was used in the sense of “corpse; body of the dead”).  The “safe” element can be read either as a noun (an enclosed structure in which material can be secure from theft or other interference) or verb (to make something safe).  For its specific purpose, a mortsafe wholly was analogous with other constructions (meatsafe, monesafe etc).

Popular in the UK in the eighteenth & nineteenth century, mortsafes were structures placed over a grave to prevent resurrectionists (now better remembered as “body-snatchers” or “grave-robbers”) from exhuming the corpse or stealing any valuables which may have been interred with the dead.  The companion term was morthouse which was a secure facility in which bodies were kept for a period prior to burial (obviating the need for a mortsafe).  The noun “resurrectionist” was later re-purposed to describe (1) a believer in a future bodily resurrection, (2) one who revives (more often “attempts to revive”) old practices or ideas (3) one who (for profit or as a hobby) restores or reconditions objects) and (4) in the humor of the turf, a racehorse that mid-course recovers its speed or stamina.  Fashioned usually of wrought iron (sometimes in combination with concrete slabs), those which were hired or leased for only a few weeks usually were secured by the design including pile-like extensions driven into the ground while those permanently installed were “concreted in”.  The tradition of burying the dead with valuables has a long history (the best known example being the tombs of the pharaohs (supreme rulers) of Ancient Egypt) and although in the eighteenth century UK any treasure likely to end up in coffins was by comparison modest, items like wedding rings or other jewellery sometimes were included.  The body-snatcher trade existed because there was demand from medical schools which needed a fair number of fresh cadavers for anatomical study and student instruction.

Demand: Anatomische les van dr. Willem Röell (1728), (Anatomy lesson by Dr Willem Röell (1700-1775)), oil on canvas by Cornelis Troost (1697-1750), Amsterdam Museum.

The Enlightenment (which appears in history texts also as the “Age of Reason”) was the period Europe which created the a framework for modernity.  Beginning late in the seventeenth century, it was an intellectual and cultural movement which sought to apply reason and scientific rigor to explore or explain.  Throughout the eighteenth century the Enlightenment spread throughout Western Europe, the Americas and much of the territory of European empires, brining ideas of individual liberty, religious tolerance and the concept of systematic scientific investigation.  Superstitions didn’t vanish as the Enlightenment spread truth, but was increasingly marginalized to matters where proof or disproof were not possible.  One of the benefits of the Enlightenment was the expansion of medical education which was good (at least sometimes) but it also created a demand for fresh corpses which could be used for dissection, the quite reasonable rationale being it was preferable for students to practice on the dead rather than the living; in the pre-refrigeration-age, demand was high and, during the instructional terms of medical schools, often constant.  The Enlightenment didn’t change the laws of supply and demand and entrepreneurial commerce was there to provide supply, the resurrectionists undertaking their ghoulish work usually under cover of darkness when cemeteries tended to be deserted.

Supply: Resurrectionists at work (1887), illustration by Hablot Knight Browne (1815–1882) whose work usually was credited to his pen-name "Phiz".

Ghoul was from the French goule, from the Persian غول (ġul), from the Arabic غُول (ḡūl) and in mythology, ghouls were demons from the underworld who at night visited the Earth to feast on the dead.  It was an obvious term to apply to grave-robbers although for generations their interests tended to be in the whatever valuables might be found and it was only later “specialists” came to be known as “body-snatchers”, a profession created by corpses becoming commodities.  By extension, in the modern era, those with a disturbing or obsessive interest in stuff to do with the death or dying came to be labelled “ghouls” and their proclivities “ghoulish”.  Mortsafes were a usually effective deterrent to body-snatching and some have survived although they were in the eighteenth century more common than those few would suggest.  While wealthy families paid for permanent structures, many were leased from cemeteries or ironmongers for only the short time required before the processes of decay and putrefaction rendered a corpse no longer a tradeable commodity.  Sturdy and durable, ex-lease mortsafes were recycled for the next burial.  Despite the Enlightenment, rumors did still spread the mortsafes were there to prevent keep the undead from rising to again walk the earth but genuinely they were there to keep others out, not the deceased in.  Still, the idea has potential and were crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) to die (God forbid), some might be tempted to install a mortsafe atop her grave so she can’t arise…just to be sure.

Turreted watchtower (1827), Dalkeith Cemetery, near Edinburgh (photograph by Kim Traynor).

In England, the Murder Act (1751) had mandated the bodies of executed criminals could be deemed property of the state and a supply for the training of surgeons thus existed but demand proved greater.  The solution of the authorities was usually to “turn a blind eye” to activities of the grave-diggers (as long as they restricted the trade to snatching the deceased working class) although in Scotland which (as it does now) operated a separate legal system, there was much public disquiet because, north of the border, there was great reverence for the dead and among the population a widespread belief in resurrection (in the sacred sense), the precepts of which included that the dead could not rise from a bodily incomplete state.  Body snatchers were thus thought desecrationists and vigilantes formed into parties to protect graveyards and there were even fatalities as body-snatchers were attacked.  In Scotland, so seriously was the matter taken there were graveyards with permanent stone structures (“watch-towers” or “watch-houses”) to house the “watchers”, volunteer organizations (which, depending on the size of the town could be over a thousand-strong) with rosters so shifts were available to watch over the site.  Reputedly, especially entrepreneurial suppliers of demand solved the problem of interference by the authorities or “concerned citizens” by “cutting out the middle man” (as it were), murdering tramps, vagrants and such to be supplied to surgeons trusted not to ask too many questions.  The legislative response in the UK was the Anatomy Act (1832, known as the “Warburton Anatomy Act”) which made lawful the donation of dead bodies to those “authorized parties” (surgeons, researchers, medical lecturers and students) licence to dissect; this was the codified origin of the notion of “donating one’s body to science”, the modern fork of which is the “organ donation” system.  With the passage of the 1832 act, supply soon exceed demand with it becoming (in some circles) fashionable to include in one’s will a clause “donate my body to science” while some families, in the spirit of the Enlightenment anxious to assist the progress of medical science made the gesture while others wished just to avoid the expense of a funeral.

The cage bra

The single strap cage bra.

A cage bra is built with a harness-like structure which (vaguely) resembles a cage, encapsulating the breasts using one or more straps.  Few actually use those straps predominately to enhance support and the effect tends to be purely aesthetic, some cage bras with minimal (or even absent) cup coverage and a thin band or multi-strap back.  Designed to be at least partially seen and admired, cage bras can be worn under sheer fabrics, with clothes cut to reveal the construction or even (in elaborated form and often on red carpets) worn alone, the effect borrowed from engineering or architecture where components once concealed (air conditioning ducting, plumbing, electrical conduits etc) deliberately are exposed.  It’s thus a complete reversal of the old rule in which the sight of a bra strap was a fashion-fail.  The idea has been extended to sports bras which anyway have long often used additional, thick straps to enhance support and minimize movement, especially those induced by lateral forces not usually encountered in everyday life.  

Lindsay Lohan in harness cage bra with sheer cups and matching knickers.

The cage bra's salient features include: (1) the straps which are a cage’s most distinctive feature.  The most simple include only a single additional strap across the centre while others have a pair, usually defining the upper pole of each cup.  Beyond that, multiple straps can be used, both at the front and back, some of which may have some functional purpose or be merely decorative.  Single strap cage bras are often worn to add distinctiveness to camisoles while those with multiple straps are referred to as the harness style and have the additional benefit (or drawback depending on one’s view) of offering more frontal coverage, the straps sometimes a framework for lace or other detailing; this is a popular approach taken with cage bralettes.

Front and back views of modestly-styled criss-cross cage bras.

(2) Many cage bras are constructed around a traditional back band, especially those which need to provide lift & support while those (usually with smaller cups) have a thin band (merely for location) or none at all.  In this acknowledgement of the laws of physics, they’re like any other bra.  Those with a conventional back band (both bras and bralettes) are often constructed as the V-shaped cage, the symmetrical straps well suited to v-necks or even square necks and paired with cardigans or more structured jackets or blazers, they’re currently the segment's best-sellers.  A more dramatic look is the criss-cross cage but fashionistas caution this works well only in minimal surroundings so accessories should be limited to earrings or stuff worn on the wrist or beyond.

Example of the cage motif applied to a conventional bra, suitable for larger sizes.

(3) As a general principle, the cage bras manufactured tend to be those with cup sizes in the smaller range, supply reflecting the anticipated demand curve.  However, even the nominal size (A, B, C etc) of the cups of cage bras can be misleading because they almost always have less coverage than all but the most minimal of those used by conventional bras and should be compared with a demi cup or the three-quarter style of plunge bras.  That said, there are strappy designs which include molded cups with underwires suitable for larger sizes but it’s a niche market and the range is limited, the scope for flourishes being limited by the need to preserve functionality, a demand which, all else being equal, tends to increase with as mass grows.  Unlike the structural underwire, many of the "underwireish" parts of a cage bra purely are decorative.

Examples of designs used to fabricate harness cage bras which can be worn under or over clothing or, in some cases, to augment a more conventional bra or bralette.

(4) Despite the specialized nature of cage bras, some are multi-purpose and include padding with all the usual advantages in concealment and additional volume, permitting use as an everyday garment rather than one used exclusively for display.  Some include removable padding so the bra can be transformed into a see-through design.

Choker cage bra.

(5) The methods of closure type vary.  The most uncompromising designs actually have no closure mechanism; the idea being one would detract from the purity of the lines so this requires the wearer to pull it over the head; to be fashionable, sometimes there's a price to be paid.  Other types use both front and back closures, usually with conventional hook & clasp fittings (so standard-sized extenders can sometimes be used) but there are some which borrow overtly from the traditions of BDSM underwear (the origin of the cage bra motif) and use extravagantly obvious buckles and even the occasional key-lock.  The BDSM look is most obviously executed in the choker cage bra which includes a neck choker as a focal point to accentuate the neck and torso, something best suited to a long, slender neck.  Buyers are are advised to move around when trying these on because the origins of the BDSM motif lay in devices used in Medieval torture routines so a comfortable fit is important.

Cage bralette.

(6) Almost all cage bras continue to use the same materials as conventional garments, the fabrics of choice being nylon or spandex, their elasticity permitting some adjustments to accommodate variations in shape or location.  Sometimes augmented with lace, fabric, mesh or metal rings, straps can also be made from leather.

Singer Ricki-Lee Coulter (b 1985, left) in a (sort of) dress with an illusion panel under the strappings which may be compared with an illusion bra (right).

(7) The cage and the illusion. The illusion industry variously exchanges and borrows motifs.  Used by fashion designers, the illusion panel is a visual trick which to some extent mimics the appearance of bare skin.  It’s done with flesh-colored fabric, cut to conform to the shape of wearer and the best known products are called illusion dresses although the concept can appear on other styles of garment.  Done well, the trick works, sometimes even close-up but it’s ideal for photo opportunities.  Because cage bras use a structure which can recall the struts used in airframes or the futtocks which are part of nautical architecture, they're an ideal framework for illusion panels.

Bespoke

Bespoke (pronounced bih-spohk)

(1) A simple past tense and past participle of bespeak.

(2) Of clothes, those made to individual order and custom custom-made.

(3) The making or selling such clothes.

(4) By extension, anything (physical or weightless) produced to a customer’s specifications, especially if a one-off creation.

(5) To ask for in advance; to reserve (obsolete).

(6) As bespeak & bespoken, betrothed or engaged to be married; spoken for (obsolete except in the literary novel).

1745–1755: The adjective was a coining in Modern English in the sense of “custom-made goods; made to order (as distinguished from ready-made; an item on the shelf of a shop)” from the late sixteenth century Middle English bespoken, the past-participle adjective from bespeak (in its sense of “arrange beforehand”), a prefixed variant of speak.  The verb bespeak was from the Middle English bispeken, from the Old English besprecan (speak about, speak against, complain), the construct being be- + sprecan (to speak).  A common Germanic compound (the cognates including the Old Saxon bisprecan, the Dutch bespreken, the Old High German bisprehhan and the German besprechen) originally meaning “to call out”, it evolved by the 1580s to enjoy a wide range of meaning in English, including “speak up”, “oppose”, “request”, “discuss”, “arrange” and “order (goods)”.  By virtue of the different application of the be- prefix, the connections between the various meanings of bespoke, bespeaking; bespeak etc are thought at least very loose and it’s clear some arose independently of others.  Bespoke long was used usually of tailored suits and other clothing but in recent decades it has been applied (with some enthusiasm) to products as diverse as a one-off Rolls-Royce and customized hacking software offered on the dark web.  Bespeak was from the Middle English bespeken & bispeken, from the Old English bespecan & besprecan (to speak about, speak against, accuse of, claim at law, complain), from the Proto-Germanic bisprekaną (to discuss, blame), the construct being be- +‎ speak.  It was cognate with the Scots bespeke (to beseech, speak or negotiate with), the West Frisian besprekke (to discuss), the Dutch bespreken (to discuss, review; debate) and the German besprechen (to discuss, review, talk about).  Bespoke & bespoken are verbs & adjectives, bespeak is a noun & verb, bespeaking is a verb, bespeaker & bespokeness are nouns and bespokely is an adverb; the noun plural use is rare.

Wartime bespoke tailoring, Henry Poole & Co (1806), Savile Row, London, 1944.

The be- prefix was from the Middle English be- & bi-, from the Old English be-, from the Proto-Germanic bi- (be-), from the Proto-Germanic bi (near, by), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European hepi (at, near) and cognate with the Saterland Frisian, West Frisian, Dutch, German Low German, German and Swedish be-.  Although there remain in English many relics of its use, (becalmed, beseige etc), the be- prefix has long ceased to be productive.  It was used to modify other forms to create various meanings: (1) By, near, next to, around, close to (beset), (2) Around; about (belay, bestir, belive), (3) About, regarding, concerning, over (bemoan, bewail), (4) On, upon, at, to, in contact with something (behold, befall), (5) Off, away, over, across (behead, besleeve), (6) As an intensifier (ie thoroughly, excessively; completely; utterly) (belabour, bedazzle), (7) All around; about; abundantly; all over (belick, bescatter), (8) Forming verbs derived from nouns or adjectives, usually with the sense of "to make, become, or cause to be" (becalm, befriend) and (9) Used to intensify adjectives meaning "adorned with something", often those with the suffix -ed (now mostly archaic or informal) (besequined, befeathered, beclawed, beloved).

Artist Louise Duggan (b 1974) delivers the bespoke "mixed-media work" Blue Lips, commissioned by Lindsay Lohan to hang in her Dubai villa, June 2023.

Bespoke is an uncontroversial word if applied in the way which for centuries mostly it was: clothing custom made for an individual, based on measurements taken prior to the tailor or seamstress cutting the fabric.  It was used also of the shoes made by cobblers, the gloves sewed by glove makers, the hats created by milliners and so on, all of whom had their own methods of maintaining their customer records, those dealing with body parts which usually didn’t much change able for decades to use the same dimensions; others had to re-measure with some frequency.  In the case of cobblers, for regular customers they would keep a pair of wooden lasts which emulated exactly the shape of the feet.  The synonyms for bespoke in this context included “custom-made”, “customized”, “purpose-built”, “tailored” & “tailor-made” and the traditional antonyms were “off the peg”, “off the rack” & “off the shelf”.  In recent years, “bespoke” has become a marketing term and stuff which is far from unique and in many cases produced in great volume (perhaps with some minor change) is now often labeled “bespoke” and “bespoke solution” is a favorite in the software business, whether it be something to manage a hairdressing salon or code on the dark web supplied by Russian hackers to certain branches of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) military to facilitate theft or covert operations.

Google ngram (a quantitative and not qualitative measure): Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.  What the trend lines indicate is bespoke came increasingly to be used in the late twentieth century and the rate of increase has shown no signs of subsiding.  That may to some extent be accounted for by Google’s methods or the publications over-represented in its catchment but, impressionistically, it seems plausible and in the US, scholars by the 1990s were noting the way bespoke was tending to supplant the traditional American “custom”, apparently because the word had appeal because it conveyed “wealth and prestige” whereas custom had been devalued by its association with things like hotted-up motor cycles.  If bespoke is uncontroversial when used of anything genuinely one-off, the appropriateness when used of anything else needs to be assessed on a case by case basis and because it’s so popular in the business of expensive cars, they provide a good case-studies.

The Maserati 5000 GT (1959-1966)

1959 Maserati 5000 GT (Shah of Iran) by Touring.

Before the ayatollahs ran Iran, it was ruled by the Shah (king) and he got a lot more fun out of life than his clerical successors, noted especially as a connoisseur and of fast, exotic and expensive cars, his collection including multiple models from Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari and Maserati among others.  In 1958 he’d driven Maserati’s then popular 3500 GT but thought it lacking in power and, because hundreds a year were sold to the (rich) public, it seemed "a bit common".  Accordingly, after receiving material advertising both the 3500 GT and the remaining 450S race cars the factory wished to dispose of after withdrawing from racing, the shah decided he wanted a combination of the two: race engine in road car.  To have it created, essentially he sent Maserati a blank cheque and asked them to call when it was ready.  Delivered to the shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 1919-1980) in 1959, it was almost a secret but when a second, commissioned by a South African customer,  was displayed at the 1959 Turin Motor show, it generated such interest that Maserati soon were fielding enquiries from rich commoners wanting what royalty had.  Priced stratospherically however, there weren’t enough rich folk on the planet to make it a viable option for their production lines so it entered the catalogue as a bespoke item, Maserati modifying the 3500 chassis which, frankly had been a bit over-taxed by the big V8 and tweaking the engine still further, slightly increasing the capacity but in a way that rendered it more docile, yet still a howler when stirred.  The chassis appeared in the list and buyers could choose their own coachbuilder and eventually eight produced their own interpretations, the most numerous being by Carrozzeria Allemano which, over the years, finished twenty-two.

1959 Maserati 5000 GT by Allemano.

So the conclusion must be that the Shah’s original was and remains a true bespoke creation because exclusively it was built for him.  Of the other 33 5000 GTs built, although they were all variations on the theme and mechanically similar, no two were exactly alike and each was built in response to an order from an individual customer, some of whom specified certain touches.  Given that, all probably deserve to be regarded as bespoke though pedants might insist the chassis was a regular production item and only the coachwork was truly bespoke.  Few seem to agree and on the rare occasions the things are offered for sale, they’re almost always described as “bespoke”.

The Rolls-Royce Phantom IV (1950-1956)

1950 Rolls-Royce Phantom IV pick-up truck.  "Luxury" pick-up trucks have been produced in volume since the 1970s and the first existed in the pre-war years but the Phantom IV was the most exclusive of them all.

Among collectors, the Phantom IV has quite an allure because it was one of the few cars produced in any number never offered for sale to the general public, only 18 produced and available only to heads of state or crowned royalty (a distinction important in royal circles which has its own pecking order).  In a manner similar to the Maserati 5000 GT, no two Phantom IVs were exactly the same although all were built on substantially the same underpinnings (the only Rolls-Royce passenger cars ever to use a straight-8).  Thus all should be thought “bespoke” in the context of the industry but there was one version which radically was different, a Phantom IV pick-up truck (a style in some places called a "ute", a back-formation from "utility" which in linguistics is described as a "complex clipping" or "elliptical abbreviation" although the punchier "short for" is the more common use) which was used by the factory to ferry bits & pieces from place to place.  So it’s a genuine one off pick-up truck but because it was just a functional workhorse which existed only because an unsalable prototype chassis was available, it’s never been regarded as something bespoke, the long ago scrapped “shop ute” just a historic curiosity.  The other 17 Phantom IVs used the body-styles more expected of the Phantom lineage (limousines, cabriolets and landaulets) and three were built for Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) but even in the less litigious 1950s there was a awareness words needed carefully to be chosen.  When ordering one of the two built as formal limousines (in five and seven-seat configurations), the Spanish embassy in London specified "bullet-proof bodywork" but the coach-builder (H. J. Mulliner), aware there were now some very big bullets, replied what they could do was fit "armoured panels" but a guarantee of "bullet proof" wasn't possible.  A practical military man, the Generalissimo must have accepted that because all were built and remain in the possession of the Spanish Army, still sometimes use for state occasions.    

The Rolls-Royce Phantom V (1959-1968) & Phantom VI (1968-1990)

1973 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI "All Weather Cabriolet" (four-door convertible) by Fura (right) and 1971 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI DHC by Fura (left). 

By comparison with the exclusive Phantom IV, its two successors were almost mass-produced, 1206 (832 of the Phantom V & 374 of the VI respectively) crafted over three decades.  In this case, it’s thought only some should be thought truly bespoke because although there were a few variations in the coachwork, many were substantially the same and its only the ones with the greatest differences (notably the odd sedanca de ville, the handful of landaulets or the other “state” cars with their elevated rooflines) which are usually thought “bespoke” and even they weren’t unique things like the Phantom IVs.  Two of the bodies on the Phantom VI chassis however indisputably were bespoke.  By the 1970s, it was only the big Phantom VI which Rolls-Royce still built on the separate chassis which made bespoke bodies easier to mount so anyone wanting a really exclusive Rolls-Royce had no other choice.  Accordingly the Italian house Fura fashioned two very big bespoke creations, one a DHC (drophead coupé, which by then the rest of the world was calling a cabriolet or convertible), the other described as an "all weather cabriolet" (which eventually was re-fashioned as a four-door convertible).  Both were on a scale not seen since seen since the 1930s and nothing like them has since been attempted.  Because the limousine chassis was designed for something long, narrow and tall, both the Fura cars were fundamentally ill-proportioned although skilled photographers have managed to create pleasing images by selecting just the right angle.  Flawed though they were, at the time there was probably nothing on four wheels which so conveyed disposable wealth which, in many cases, is of course often the essence of the bespoke.  It was a good thing they made such an impression because presumably it dissuaded people from looking too closely: underneath the engineering was pure Phantom VI which meant drum brakes and a rear axle suspended on semi-elliptic (cart) springs so it was (refined) Ford Model T (1908) technology under all that leather and burl walnut veneer.  Such was the attention to detail those cart spring were encased in Wefco leather gaiters so those enjoying the seclusion of the rear compartment (trimmed usually in West of England cloth rather than the leather on which the chauffeur sat) weren't disturbed by any tiresome squeaks.   

1956 Mercedes-Benz 300c (W186 "Adenauer") Estate Car by Binz.

Consumption can be conspicuous yet still subtle, achieved usually if a bespoke creation is both expensive and functional.  The Mercedes-Benz 300 saloons and four-door cabriolet of (W186 & W189 1951-1962) were large, stately and beautifully built and the platform attracted coachbuilders who saw the potential for estate cars (station wagons), ambulances and (especially) hearses.  Many were built and the hearses in particular typically aren't regarded as bespoke because they were essentially catalogue items with little variation between editions.  Some of the rare estates ("shooting brakes" to the English, "station wagons" in North America and for a time, "station sedans" if built by Holden, General Motors' (GM) Australian outpost) however have always been treated as bespoke even though from an engineering point of view the changes were minimal and the styling hardly imaginative.  The reason for the association seems to be that they “dripped money”; even to the uninformed they were obviously expensive so it seems possible there is the matter of "bespoke by acclamation".  Interestingly, in 1960 the factory did their own one-off 300 Estate, this one a “telemetry car” built in the era before sensors to travel at high speed on a test track, recording data from the vehicle ahead, the two tethered with long cables.  Styled in an almost avant-garde manner with rear glass which curved into the roof, the factory regarded it rather as Rolls-Royce treated their pick-up: a mule to be used until something better came along.  They never called it bespoke.

1965 Aston Martin DB5 Shooting Brake.

Sir David Brown (1904–1993) liked his DB5 coupé (which the factory in their English way called a "saloon") but found it too cramped comfortably to accommodate his polo gear, shotguns and hunting dogs.  Now, that would be called a “first world problem” but because Brown then owned Aston Martin, he simply wrote out a work order and had his craftsmen create a bespoke shooting brake (an English term best understood as “station wagon owned by someone rich”) which they did by hand-forming the aluminum with hammers over wooden formers.  It delighted him and solved his problem but created another because good customers stared writing him letters asking for their own.  Unfortunately, Aston Martin was at full capacity building DB5s and developing the up-coming DB6 and V8 models.  With a bulging order book, the resources didn’t exist to add a niche model so the project was out-sourced to the coachbuilder Radford which built a further 11 (and subsequently another 6 based on the DB6).  That Brown’s original car was bespoke seems clear but the others might be a gray area because the coachbuilder’s records and assessments of the cars indicate they were identical in all but the color of the paint and leather trim.  There may have been only 12 DB5s and 6 DB6s but by conventional definition, they came of a production line, albeit a leisurely and exclusive one so can all but the original be thought truly bespoke?  According to the Aston Martin website, they are bespoke so that’s presumably the last word on the subject.

There is even bespoke Nutella.  In 2014, while appearing on-stage in a London production of David Mamet's (b 1947) Speed-the Plow (1988), Lindsay Lohan stayed at the Mandarin Oriental hotel which supplied her with a personalized jar of the nutty treat, complete with bespoke label.

At its messy margins, English often troubles the purists but it’s a democratic language and meanings do evolve through popular use.  That can mean a meaning shift as has happened to “decimate” (originally “reduce by 10%”; probably now understood as “reduce to 10%”) or alternative meanings can emerge and run in parallel.  In tailoring, “bespoke” is used still in its original sense but with cars it seems now industry shorthand for “one-off or short-run variants” of existing models.  In the matter of the DB5 Shooting Brakes, the rear coachwork for Sir David’s original genuinely was “bespoke” and what Radford did was eleven exact replications but, by even Aston Martin’s then standards, a dozen-odd is a small number with enough of a hint of “exclusivity” for the label to seem appropriate.  That of course does beg the question: At what point does a design cease reasonably to be called “bespoke” if identical copies are being produced?  Empirically, the number must be “greater than eleven” but it probably can’t be defined except by suggesting it’s the point at which production can be said to have happened in “a series” and that should be well-short of three figures.  Of cars, “bespoke” now probably is over-used but its new career seems here to stay.

The Smart Fortwo (top left) and some bespoke imaginings channeling (clockwise) DMC DeLorean (in filmic incarnation), Chevrolet Corvette, Lotus Esprint, Porsche 911, Bugatti Veyron, Lamborghini Countach and Jaguar E-Type (XKE) .

Some year ago, even before mass-market generative AI made such sights routine, the happy combination of the internet, Photoshop and a large cohort of gullible viewers encouraged the creation of a meme purporting to be a survey of the bespoke carbon fibre bodies available to be bolted to the diminutive Smart Fortwo (C451; 2007-2015).  Even a cursory look at the scale of the humans included in some of the photos should have been enough for people to work out this was fake news but the "factory" is said to have received “some” enquiries asking where the bespoke bodies could be bought.

Situationism

Situationism (pronounced sich-oo-ey-shuh-niz-uhm)

(1) A fork of Marxist political philosophy, a collection of (often abstract) theories used to build critiques of existing structures.  The overt political project emerged from the merging of a number of politically-minded, mid-twentieth century avant-garde art movement.  

(2) A theory in psychology which holds that personality and behavior is influenced more by external, situational factors than internal traits or motivations.

1955: A compound word: situation + ism.  Situation was from the early fifteenth century Middle English situacioun & situacion (place, position, or location), from Middle French situation, from the Old French situacion, from the Medieval Latin situationem (nominative situatio) (position, situation), the construct being situare (to locate, to place), from situs (a site, a position), thus situate +‎ -ion.  The Latin situs was from the primitive Indo-European root tkei (to settle, dwell, be home).  The meaning "state of affairs" was from 1710, extended specifically by 1803 to mean "a post of employment".  The suffix -ion was from the Middle English -ioun, from the the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  The use in political philosophy technically dates from 1955 (as situation ethics) although its origins can be traced to (at least) the nineteenth-century beginnings of sociology.  It was first seen in applied psychology in 1968 (as situational ethics) with publication of a monograph by Walter Mischel (1930-2018) who in later writings displayed some ambivalence.  Situationism is a noun, situationist is a noun & adjective and situationally is an adverb; the noun plural is situationisms.

The Internationale Situationiste (Situationist International)

Formed in 1957, dissolved in 1972 and eventually more a concept than a movement, the Situationist International (SI) was a trans-European collective of avant-garde artists and political radicals envisaged as a fusion of art & revolutionary activism; although originally a loose structure, it was later noted for its rigidity and its core critique was of modern consumer society, particularly under advanced capitalism. Influenced by criticism that philosophy had tended increasingly to fail at the moment of its actualization, the SI, although it assumed the inevitability of social revolution, always maintained many (cross-cutting) strands of expectations of the form(s) this might take but, just as a world-revolution did not follow the Russian upheavals of 1917, the events of May, 1968 failed to realize the predicted implications; the SI can be said then to have died with the discursive output between 1968-1972 treated either as a lifeless aftermath to an anti-climax or a bunch of bitter intellectuals serving as mourners at their own protracted funeral.

SI art: The Change (1957), paint on hardwood by Ralph Rumney (1934-2002).

The SI’s origins were in the north-western Italian town Cosio di Arroscia where, during a conference, several experimental art movements resolved to merge, the most prominent being (1) the Lettrist International, (2) the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus and (3) the London Psychogeographical Association.  Tellingly, although many original members were focused on the imagery of art, the most influential figure was the French theorist Guy Debord (1931-1994) who had in left-wing circles become fashionable after the publication of a number of essays in which he argued modern capitalist societies had become dominated by what he called “spectacle”.  That was the thesis he most fully explored in his most famous work, The Society of the Spectacle (1967) which asserted: (1) social life had become mediated by images, media & commodities, (2) real human relations were being replaced by a passive consumption of representations and (3) individuals increasingly experienced life as spectators rather than participants.  What all this meant was Western society had become a system where appearance (depictions of a “construct of reality” which were simulacrums) had replaced lived experience.

SI Agitprop.

Despite the political slant, when formed, the SI certainly retained an identity as something artistic and although membership was erratic with factional alignments constantly shifting, there always was a strain which valued the art for its intrinsic qualities at least as much as for any utility as propaganda pieces; indeed, it was the notion of art abstracted from some purpose which was the SI's constant fault-line.  Those most influential in the early days of the SI had been much affected by the physical damage suffered by so many European cities during World War II (1939-1945) and especially the possibilities offered by re-building, thus the interest in concepts like unitary urbanism and psychogeography, essentially a response to the sociological aspects of the re-construction of those cities in the immediate post-war period.

SI propaganda: The Situationist Times 6: International Parisian Edition, Paris, December 1967.

The Situationist Times was an international, English-language periodical created and edited by Dutch artist Jacqueline de Jong (1939–2024), six issues published between 1962-1967.  Envisaged as a radical compendium encompassing Situationist tactics such as détournement and a printed form of dérive, the journals included essays, artwork, “found” images, and fragments of works concerned with such issues as topology, politics, and spectacle culture.  In the anarchist sprit of the collective, Ms De Jong insisted the periodical must be a “completely free magazine, based on the most creative of the Situationist ideas” and what appears on the pages does over the years show traces of the political and aesthetic schisms which would characterize the SI.  As well as the SI’s usual suspects, contributors included the English astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) who (inadvertently) coined the term “big bang” and the French writer Noël Arnaud (pen name of Raymond Valentin Muller (1919- 2003) of the school of pataphysics (one of the late nineteenth century’s more curious alternatives to orthodox science which may (as QAnon seems to have) begun as a joke but took on a life because it so appealed to people who “wanted it to be true”).  With the failures of the Parisian revolutionaries in 1968, SI’s historic moment passed and the seventh edition of The Situationist Times, (The Pinball Issue) remained incomplete and was not published although extracts of the content have appeared.

SI Art: Untitled (Peinture collective situationniste) (1961).

As was done with the SI's “pieces by the collective”, Guy Debord and Jeppesen Victor Martin (1930–1993) signed along with eight other artists; within two years all except Debord and Martin had been expelled so in that sense, no work better illustrates the creative tensions which rent the SI.  Those “cancelled” in some cases regarded their erasure from the SI rolls as a badge of honor and Debord couldn't have them burned at the stake or taken outside and shot (which had over the years been the fate of a few artists who displeased a dictator) so there was that.  

Prior to the formation of the SI, some of what had been written about the form the physical reconstruction of post-war Europe should take had attracted interest from political theorists, especially those in anti-authoritarian Marxist circles who would come to position themselves as the inheritors of western political liberalism, notably the Lettrist International (formed in 1952).  In the way the European left did things in the early post-war years, the SI was conceived as an even more radical collective movement which wholly would renounce any connection with high-art and deal instead with the functional business of psychogeography, dissolving rather than exploring the boundaries between life and art.  However, whatever might have been the purity of the founders' intentions, because what the SI produced was eye-catchingly visual, it attracted practitioners in many fields of art and an audience which enjoyed the supposedly subversive pieces as just another spectacle.  That was tribute to the striking posters but wasn’t something which best pleased the uncompromising activists who viewed art merely as something with a revolutionary political purpose; factions formed and any commonality of interest between the utilitarians and the artists proved insufficiently strong to maintain the SI as a unified movement.  From formation to extinction, inherently it was fissiparous although, while members could be kicked out of the SI, it didn't mean their work ceased and the Scandinavian Drakabygget group (noted for the memorably titled Journal for art against atomic bombs, popes and politicians) essentially ignored their expulsion and continued to exhibit and publish in the Situationists vein.

SI art: Industrial Painting (1958), monoprinted oil paint, acrylic paint & typographic ink on canvas by Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio (1902–1964).

Unrolled from a wooden spool and extending just over 75 metres (246 feet) Industrial Painting was one of a series of abstract works Pinot-Gallizio painted in this mode.  Unspooling in a swirl of blotches of colors, the idea was to recall the vibrancy of figures moving along a city’s streets and a deliberate limitation of the design was only some 9 metres (30 feet) could be displayed at one time, the idea being to emulate a journey in which much of what’s just been seen fades or vanishes from memory as the traveller proceeds along their path.  In an indication of the way the SI worked in an industrial age, Pinot-Gallizio made these works on his “painting machine” which he built with mechanical rollers attached to a long table.  What emerged was, in contrast to most of what came from “conveyor-belt” mass production, chaotic and wholly unique.

Modern situationist; modern spectacle: French content creator & author Léna Situations (Léna Mahfouf, b 1997), in Georges Hobeika (b 1962) black gown with inverted V-neckline (technically a wedge), Academy Awards ceremony, Los Angeles, March 2026.

Ms Mahfouf uses “Léna Situations” as an online pseudonym because that was the name of the fashion & lifestyle-focused blog she, as a teen-ager, created in 2012; it gained her a “brand identity” and was thus for some purposes retained in adulthood.  The blog would have seemed familiar to the members of the SI because her concept was sharing fragments of her life in different “situations” which might be defined by the place, the outfit worn or what was being experienced so was thus a series of spectacles, able to be understood as fragmentary relics of time & place or a series of narratives.  Using that model, platforms like Instagram have allowed just about everybody to become a situationist and while Debord didn’t live to see such things, he’d have recognized (if not approved) “social lives mediated by images, media & commodities”.

Charli XCX (stage-name of English singer-songwriter Charlotte Emma Aitchison (b 1992)) in a Christopher John Rogers (b 1993) white fit & flare dress with ruffled peplum, featuring a more conventional implementation of the V-neckline.

Ms Mahfouf's retention of a youthful online pseudonym is not unique, Charli XCX another example.  The star herself revealed the stage name is pronounced chahr-lee ex-cee-ex; it has no connection with Roman numerals and XCX is anyway not a standard Roman number.  XC is “90” (C minus X (100-10)) and CX is “110” (C plus X (100 +10)) but, should the need arise, XCX could be used as a code for “100”, on the model of something like the “May 35th” reference Chinese internet users, when speaking of the “Tiananmen Square Incident” of 4 June 1989, adopted in an attempt to circumvent the CCP's (Chinese Communist Party) “Great Firewall of China” censorship apparatus.  In 2015, Ms XCX revealed the text string was an element in her MSN screen name (CharliXCX92) when young (it stood for “kiss Charli kiss”) and, after appearing in the early publicity for her music, it gained critical mass so Charli XCX we still have.

SI art: Lettre à mon fils (Letter to my son, 1956-1957), oil on canvas by Asger Jorn (1914-1973).

What quickly coalesced as the core of situationist theory was the concept of the spectacle, an explanation of the mechanism of advanced capitalism’s modern tendency towards expression and mediation of social relations through objects and for structuralists it was a compelling model.  It was beyond a critique of materialism and might have been more effective had the SI been able to resist using the increasingly layered and complex language of the mid-twentieth century Marxist discourse, a sub-set of language which would come to delight academic deconstructionists but often baffled others.  As well as Debord’s writings, Belgium philosopher Raoul Vaneigem’s (b 1934) The Revolution of Everyday Life (1968) was a seminal work; in the riots of 1968, both proved influential, less as entire texts than as sources for the epigrammatic and graffiti-friendly phrases (Sous les pavés, la plage! (Under the paving stones, the beach!), L’ennui est contre-révolutionnaire (Boredom is counter-revolutionary) and Ne travaillez jamais (Never work!) among the most replicated) which appeared all over French cities during the uprising.  In that, the SI thus proved the primacy of objects in social relations (whether hegemonic or not) although the SI generally held that “situationism” was a meaningless term, a position necessitated by their inherent rejection of ideologies, all of which they dismissed either as useless utopian myths or constructed superstructures existing only to create the social controls required to serve the economic interests of a ruling elite.  Much of the history of the SI was one faction rejecting another; indeed, the SI’s transition from artistic to political movement was less organic than disruptive.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

The critique of the consumer society resonated strongly with student radicals who were the failed revolutionaries of 1968 but, remarkably for a crew which was so influential on mass-movements, the SI was always tiny (it wasn’t untypical for there to be fewer than two-dozen active members) with internal conflicts and expulsions common, Debord given frequently to banishing members he believed had compromised the group’s revolutionary aims, the worst sin of heretics apparently the creation of art which shocked by virtual of its appearance but did nothing to in anyway transform society; comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) might have called such transgressors “formalists”.  Neglected for decades, the concepts developed by the SI attracted renewed interest in the social media age as much of what they’d described suddenly seemed familiar.  Key SI concepts included (1) psychogeography (the study of how urban environments affect emotions and behaviour, (2) dérive (drift) in which a wander through a city was documented with illustrative images, (3) détournement (appropriating using existing cultural elements (advertisements, comics, artworks etc) and, in subversive ways, repurposing them to undermine their original ideological message) and (4) constructed situations which were “moments of life” (events, environments, experiences) created for no purpose other than breaking the passivity of everyday existence.  If all that sounds something like what may have appeared in the check-list used by the designers of Instagram, TikTok and such, it hints (1) the SI may have been onto something and (2) as US billionaire investor Warren Buffett (b 1930) put it when explaining the outcome of class warfare: “We won”.

A requiem for the SI: No Title (1975-1976), lithograph on paper by Constant Niewwenhuys (1920-2005).

Debord no more wanted the SI to be what would come to be called a “think tank” any more than he wanted an artist’s colony but certainly envisaged it as a theoretical vanguard rather than a conventional political organization, his view being that even if created as something “revolutionary”, such movements tended to be “captured” (ie absorbed into the very system they were created to subvert or at least oppose).  That was why the orthodox SI position was not to exhibit their works in galleries or museums because, in the spirit of Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) notion “the medium is the message”, once radical art was hung in such places, it became merely another commodity in the “spectacle”, dissenters accused of “recuperation” (a SI concept in which radical ideas had been neutralized and absorbed by mainstream culture).  So, members who were judged to have misunderstood or diluted Situationist orthodoxy (ie disagreed with Debord) were expelled, the rationale being what was valued in adherents was “quality rather than quantity”.  Although supposedly in the tradition of Marxist collective decision-making, Debord exercised extraordinary informal authority within the SI (despite the group officially rejecting hierarchy) and in practice, personally defined the SI’s theoretical parameters.  In a nice touch which would be familiar in places like the Soviet Union, the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)) or the modern Republican Party’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) faction, the “culture of exclusion” was ritualized in the journal Internationale Situationniste which regularly would publish lists of those un-personed (including the reasons), the former members denounced in harsh language, the worst insults including accusations of “theoretical confusion” and the practicing of mere “pseudo-Situationism”; by the time of dissolution in 1972, the membership consisted of Debord and one remaining loyal soul.  The SI, at least in the more reductionist works, did create some genuinely interesting critiques of the post-war West and some of the early art was, if not exactly novel, certainly stark and compelling.  However, it remains hard to identify enough ideas to justify the volume of text produced and phrasing it in what was surely deliberately difficult language does suggest there was an attempt to conceal the repetition of thought.