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).  The red four-door was in May 2026 offered at auction in the US; it was passed-in on a bid of US$251,160. 

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.

Rolls-Royce revisited

2021 Roll-Royce Ghost in Friskee Pink.

It is believed that as early as the 1920s there were pink Rolls-Royces.  Constructs of what the past “looked like” must come from paintings, photographs and films and because in the inter-war years most of the photographic record was in monochrome (actually gray-scale or sepia), there’s often a perception it visually was a dull, subdued age but really it was a quite colourful time.  After color photography in the post-war years became ubiquitous, the hues part of the environment became recorded with increasing accuracy as the equipment improved and with the advent of mass-market digital devices, such is the volume stored that it’s now likely that somewhere, accessible by someone, there’s a HD (high-definition) color image of just about every public space.  Although the Autochrome process became available in 1907, it produced images which often can’t relied upon to be an accurate depiction of a color and it was anyway expensive, meaning use tended to be limited to professionals and governments (the military especially attracted because of the possibilities offered for aerial photography).  Not until the mid-1930s when Eastman Kodak’s Kodachrome and Agfa’s Agfacolor Neu were released as consumer products (at a price the middle-class could afford), did color photography reach the mass-market.

John Lennon's 1965 Rolls-Royce Phantom V.  Ordered in 1964, it emerged the next year from coachbuilder Mulliner Park Ward in Valentine Black over black leather with black wheels & wheel covers.  The request for a black grill “politely was refused”.

However, during the 1920s, Rolls-Royce built only “rolling chassis” which were ordered by customers who then choose a coachbuilder to fabricate a body, the choice of color not limited by the factory’s charts.  That changed in the 1950s when, for a variety of reasons, Rolls-Royce began offering their “Standard Steel Body”, something of a harbinger in that within a generation the old world of bespoke, coachbuilt bodies on separate chassis would be driven to extinction.  In this era, no pink Roll-Royce would leave the Crewe facility (where Rolls-Royce and Bentley vehicles were built between 1938-2002) although some wild color schemes were seen in the after-market, most famously that on the 1965 Phantom V (1959-1968) commissioned by then The Beatles (1960-1970) member John Lennon (1940-1980).  Mr Lennon’s 1965 Phantom V was painted during the era of psychedelia and has since habitually been dubbed “John Lennon’s psychedelic Rolls-Royce” although the Beatle insisted it was all based on what he called the  “gypsy motifs” used on caravans (“gypsy” then the common descriptor of the Romani people, known in some places as “travellers”).

2021 Roll-Royce Ghost in Friskee Pink: The “Immersive Seating with Centre Console” with “Rear Ventilated Seats” including piping in Sheida Pink.

Under new ownership, by the twenty-first century, the factory’s old insistence on finishing their cars only in “dignified colors” had been sacrificed to the demands of a new generation of rick folks with aesthetic sensibilities drawn from different traditions than most of the customers of yore.  Like other manufacturers of cars for the rich, Rolls-Royce now has a “Bespoke” division to cater to the whims of those able to pay for “special requests” and as well as an extensive color chart, there’s also a “P2S” (paint-to-sample) service.  The P2S service is not new, Aston-Martin and Bristol for decades offering customers the option and while, in times gone by, it was often ties in the color of an old school or regiment which might be provided as the sample, sources now are more diverse.  The pictured “Friskee Pink” finish on the 2021 Rolls-Royce Ghost was among the US$129,000-odd in “special options” the Bespoke division included in the final invoiced price of US$473,675, the color contributing US$30,100.  As well as the exterior paint, the Friskee Pink package included some trim and accessory detailing in contrasting Sheida Pink including the rotary controls, stitching, piping, grab handles & indicator stalks.  In a nice touch, the “Signature Key” was enclosed in a Sheida Pink clasp.

2021 Roll-Royce Ghost in Friskee Pink: Right-side “Chrome-Plated Visible Exhausts”.

For a machine with a MSRP (manufacturer’s recommended retail price) of US$339,000, the additional $129K in options is these days not unusual and $30K for paintwork is hardly excessive, some concerns charging twice that.  It was also something obvious to those outside (one of the reasons bespoke editions exist) so might seen as good value, the “Immersive Seating with Centre Console” (US$18,875.00) able to impress only by those inside although, if turned up, the experience of the “Rolls-Royce Bespoke Audio” system (US$10,800.00) could be enjoyed by those inside and out.  Given all that US$1,975 for “Rear Ventilated Seats” seemed conspicuously a bargain.  These prices were all within the orthodoxy of what passes for reality in the upper reaches of the market but what was striking was the US$5,400 invoiced for “Chrome-Plated Visible Exhausts” which sounds expensive for a short length of piping given that in the 1960s the US manufacturers typically would list an entire “dual exhaust system” for around US$30.00 (one of the bargains of the era given the advantages gained).  However, on the Rolls-Royce the option required a different lower valance so there’s more involved than may at first appear.  The US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) takes an interest in exhaust pipes (chrome-plated and visible or not) and recorded emissions of 623 grams of CO₂ per mile, meaning it received a SR (Smog Rating) of 3 (out of 10), that and the combined city/highway fuel consumption of 14 mpg (7.1 gallons per 100 miles, a measure unique to the US (16.8 mpg in Imperial terms or 16.8 litres/100 km) producing a composite FE & GGR (Fuel Economy & Greenhouse Gas Rating) of 1 (out of 10), thus the imposition of a GGT (Gas Guzzler Tax) of US$2,600.

Shooting Brakes   

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.

Sanpaku

Sanpaku (pronounced san-pach-ew)

An eye in which the sclera (white of the eye) is visible on three sides of the iris rather than the usual two (left & right).

Pre 1700s: A borrowing from the Japanese 三白 (sanpaku) (three whites) or 三白眼 (sanpaku gan) (three-white eyes).  Sanpaku is a noun and sanpakuish is an adjective; the noun plural is sanpakus.

Sanpaku (三白) (three whites) & Sanpaku gan (三白眼) (three-white eyes) are Japanese terms from traditional Chinese & Japanese medicine and they describe the “condition” in which the white of the eye is visible either above or below the iris when looking straight ahead.  Although the word was popularized by Japanese educator and nutritionist Nyoichi “George” Ohsawa (1893–1966) when he published the book You Are All Sanpaku in 1965, the idea had existed in oriental medicine probably for centuries although it’s impossible accurately to determine its origin.  It was mentioned in the diaries of at least one nineteenth century US Navy physician but attracted no interest in the West until the release of Ohsawa san’s book.  In Western medicine the phenomenon is described as “lower scleral show” or “inferior scleral show”, terms which are merely descriptive because (1) it’s something thought within the range of normality, (2) is indicative of no other mental or physical states and thus (3) is generally not considered a medical condition requiring treatment and is attributed variously to (3a) normal variation in eyelid anatomy, (3b) transient facial expression or gaze direction, (3c) traumatic injury or (3d) age-related tissue changes.  There are orbital or eyelid conditions (the best known being a thyroid-related eye disease causing lid retraction) which can induce a sanpaku-like appearance but instances are vanishingly rare.  In short, the medicalization of sanpaku is thought a product of superstition so predictably, on social media, sanpaku eyes seem to have a cult following.

Sydney Sweeney (b 1997) displaying her Sanpaku inferior (sclera (white of the eye) visible below the iris), Met Gala, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manhattan, New York City, May 2025.  Lovely though her eyes are, it may be not many have long focused on them.

In You Are All Sanpaku, Ohsawa san described sanpaku as a condition which indicated physical and mental imbalances and discussed its significance in relation to diet and overall well-being.  Historically, sanpaku is believed to have entered oriental medicine from the Japanese practice of “face-reading” and those with eyes observed thus were considered ill-fated and destined for a life filled with misfortune, culminating often with an early demise.  It gained a following on social media by the usual means: celebrity association.  Diana, Princess of Wales, President John Kennedy & Marilyn Munroe, all of whom died young, were all sanpakus and as Ohsawa san warned in You Are All Sanpaku: the eyes indicate someone's fate, signifying imminent danger or an “early and tragic end.”

Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997, far left), Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962, centre left), Billie Eilish (b 2001. centre right) and John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; POTUS 1961-1963, far right).  Three died young in tragic circumstances but Ms Eilish remains fit and well.

The original basis of “face reading” isn’t known but as a diagnostic tool it focused on the matter of “balance”, something important also to the physicians of Antiquity who identified the “four humors”: flegmat (phlegm), sanguin (blood), coleric (yellow bile) & melanc (black bile) which were the causative agents of the four personality types, the phlegmatic, the sanguine, the choleric & the melancholic.  In the East, signs of sanpaku meant a man’s whole system (physical, physiological and spiritual) was out of balance, something caused by sins committed against the order of the universe, accounting for his sickness, unhappiness or insanity.  Ohsawa san noted that in the West, such folk had come to be called “accident prone” and they were the ones who should take note of the warning from sanpaku, nature’s tap on the shoulder.  A practical author of self-help texts, Ohsawa san recommended sanpaku eyes should be treated with a macrobiotic diet, focusing on brown rice and soybeans, something on which he had real expertise as the founder of the macrobiotic diet.

By their sanpaku you shall know them: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945, left), crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013, centre) and cult-leader Charles Manson (1934-2017, right).

Interestingly, the beliefs about sanpaku are culturally variable although universally it’s held the condition determines one's fate.  In the Japanese tradition those consequences are ill fate and misfortune while the Chinese associate sanpaku with good luck and wealth and this divergence has interested cultural anthropologists who study the symbolism and mythologies of different societies.  The tradition divides the eyes into "yin sanpaku" and "yang sanpaku", the roots of this the ancient Chinese concept of yin & yang, representing the duality of opposing yet complementary forces in the universe.  Yin and Yang are fundamental concepts in Chinese philosophy and represent complementary and interconnected aspects of the universe. Yin is associated with qualities such as darkness, femininity, passivity, and coldness, while Yang is associated with light, masculinity, activity, and warmth. They’re seen as opposing forces that are in a constant state of dynamic balance and they exist within all phenomena, including human physiology, nature and society.  In this they differ from the (wholly un-related) concept in particle physics of matter and anti-matter.  Matter is the familiar stuff which is much of the physical universe (particles such as protons, neutrons, and electrons) while anti-matter consists of particles with the same mass as their matter counterparts but carrying an opposite charges.  When matter and anti-matter particles come into contact, they can annihilate each other, releasing energy.  Ying and Yang, mutually dependent, live in peaceful co-existence.

The Mean Girls (2004) crew demonstrate the range:  Rachel McAdams (b 1978, far left) & Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, centre-left) are in the part of the population who are either not sanpakus or the effect is imperceptible.  Lacey Chabert (b 1982, centre-right) is in the group with a separation around 1 mm while Amanda Seyfried (b 1985, far right) displays up to 2 mm depending on her expression.

A quadrilateral meeting to discuss German war guilt reparations and allied debts accumulated during World War I (1914-1918): Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934; President of France 1913-1920, far left), Andrew Bonar Law (1858–1923; Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1922-1923, centre-left), Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943, centre right) and Georges Theunis (1873–1966; Prime Minister of Belgium 1921-1925 & 1934-1935, far right), 10 Downing Street, London, December 1922.

Before it became a meme, this was an obscure photograph which until the twenty-first century had appeared only in some specialist history texts but as the internet achieved critical mass, memes became a thing and Mussolini’s sanpaku eyes were a gift for the meme-makers, most captions suggesting the Duce may have had a sudden premonition of his own unfortunate end although others offered: “I feel naked without a moustache”, “I think I have imposter syndrome”, “Oh God, I just pooped my pants”, “I know one of these men is a Freemason but I don't know which” and “I wonder if they can tell I've smoked some weed”.  However, although not noted as a mystic, he may have sensed another's impending death, “sitteth at the right hand”, Andrew Bonar Law then having only months to live.

A colorized image of the lovely Hedy Lamarr (stage name of Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, 1914-2000).  Bare shoulders and sanpaku eyes have an allure.

Once best known as a Hollywood film star, Ms Lamar’s twenty-first century fame comes from her contribution early in World War II (1939-1945) to an early version of “jamming-resistant” radar-guidance.  The idea came to her while playing an ad-hoc piano duet with a composer as they attempted a synchronized “note-hopping” piece, something used in avant-garde compositions but effected mechanically by recording four “player pianos” (instruments modified with electromechanical or pneumatic mechanisms that activated the keys by instruction from perforated paper or metallic rolls) fitted with matching rolls.  From this example, the pair came to understand radio frequencies also could be switched, the wartime utility being this would make signals less susceptible to being jammed.  Even then, “frequency hopping” was not a new idea but the implementation Ms Lamar suggested was sufficiently novel to be granted a patent although the technology didn’t then exist to minimize sufficiently the size of the components which could be used in torpedos or rockets so use of the concept didn’t become widespread until the 1960s.  The “spread spectrum” later became familiar in WiFi and secure networking.

Princess Beatrice, Mrs Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi (b 1988).  Until she appeared at a royal wedding in the fascinator she made famous (some humorless souls would have said infamous), she was most noted for her lovely sanpaku eyes.

In Japanese face reading, yang sanpaku eyes (white part visible above the iris) reveal a person's dark and sinister nature, the eyes indicating the unstable mental state suffered by individuals exhibiting uncontrollable aggression, such as psychopathic murderers or serial killers.  Yin Sanpaku Eyes (sclera visible below the iris) signify a different physical or mental imbalance, one caused by the abuse of drugs, alcohol, and sugar which disrupt the body's equilibrium.  Although discouraged by all in the profession except the odd, entrepreneurial cosmetic surgeon, treatment options are available to “correct” scleral show and the most effect treatment is aesthetic plastic surgery, specifically the procedure called blepharoplasty, which can correct the appearance of the eyes.  The construct of blepharoplasty was blepharo- +‎ -plasty.  Blepharo- was from the New Latin, from the Ancient Greek βλέφαρον (blépharon) (eyelid; a feature resembling an eyelid) and -plasty was from the Ancient Greek πλαστός (plastós) (molded, formed) which now has the special meaning in medicine meaning "repair, restoration or re-shaping of part of the body with a surgical procedure".

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC, b 1989, US Representative (Democrat-New York) since 2019 and one of "the squad") displaying her Sanpaku superior (sclera visible above the iris).  Some other of her body parts are also well-documented.

Casual observation suggests sanpaku eyes are far from rare and there are said to be three classes: (1) those with at least a .25 mm (.0098 inch) space between the iris and the upper and lower eyelids, (2) those with a separation of 1 (.0394 inch) mm and (3) those with a gap of 2 mm (.0787 inch) or more.  The concition need not manifest as something symmetrical (in the vertical axis), the two elements being (1) Sanpaku inferior: white visible below the iris and (2) Sanpaku superior: white visible above the iris, the latter said often induced when a subject is frightened or physiologically stressed).  However although “estimates” have been published, neither the prevalence of the condition nor the distribution within the three (unofficial) groups have ever been the subject of a reputable epidemiological study; because “sanpaku eyes” is not a recognised medical or anthropometric category; funding would thus be hard to secure although, as a purely observational and statistical exercise, presumably not many ethics departments would much be troubled.  So, lacking a defined diagnostic entry, there is no standardised measurement threshold and estimates of prevalence are thus almost certainly speculative and thus unreliable.  Those with sanpaku eyes should not too much dwell on the numbers and instead flutter their eyelashes and enjoy the admiring glances.

Mean Girls four-way phone call: Eye-rolls (Amanda Seyfried, top right) don't count, a sanpaku defined only by separation maintained when looking ahead or to the side.

Humans are not the only species with a sclera but we are untypical in it being so visible.  That humans even have white scleras has interested linguistic anthropologists, evolutionary biologists and other researchers, some offering the Cooperative Eye Hypothesis which suggested the distinctive appearance evolved as a mechanism with non-verbal communication could be enhanced.  According to this conjecture, the high visibility of the iris & pupil against the white background allows an interlocutor more easily to track eye movements, helping individuals to understand where others are looking during interactions.  Observational studies revealed the way humans and other great apes move their heads and eyes in different ways, humans relying more on eye movements than head movements to see where someone else is looking.  Apes, without the white component in their eyes, tend more to move the whole head.  Not all support the "cooperative eye" faction but it’s an interesting approach to understanding the evolutionary significance of the human eye's appearance and the sophistication of communication is certainly a noted difference between humans and apes.

Seeing the whites of the eye: a gree-eyed cormorant taking lunch.

The phrase “don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes” comes of the military and was an instruction to infantry in the age of the musket to delay firing until the target was within close range, the rationale being (1) accuracy would be enhanced and (2) the projectile (musket ball) would strike with greater energy, thus increasing the effectiveness (measured in the casualty & death rates).  It’s often attributed to Colonel William Prescott (1726–1795) shouting it to his troops at the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775) during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) but according to Phrase Finder, the origins lie at least 32 years earlier.  On 27 Jun, 1743, during the Battle of Dettingen (fought in Bavaria as one of the "footnote engagements" of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748)), the resourceful Scot Lieutenant-Colonel (later Lieutenant General) Sir Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw (1867-1761) 5th Baronet) departed from military orthodoxy when, responding to a French cavalry charge, adopted a novel tactic he’d devised, keeping his men not in the conventional square formation to meet the charge head on but having the two centre companies divide from the centre, falling back from the outer markers, thereby compelling the French to gallop through a withering crossfire.  It was potentially a high-risk strategy but he’d trained his troops well the French cavalrymen obediently threaded the needle, suffering heavy losses.  Tacitly acknowledging the danger presented by his innovation, Sir Andrew’s succinct instruction to his brigade had been: “Dinna fire till ye can see the whites of their e' en . . . if ye dinna kill them they'll kill you.”

If the human eye lacked a white sclera it would mean the “messaging” in facial expressions (a non-verbal clue in communication) would have evolved a little differently; Paris Hilton (b 1981) illustrates (digitally altered image).  Ms Hilton has brown eyes but often wears blue contact lens.

As far as is known, all living creatures on Earth came ultimately from a single event which can be said to be the origin of life because at this time, there is no evidence of other living things anywhere in the universe.  Everything else is speculative; life may have started (or arrived) here many other times but for whatever reason not thrived and around the universe there may be many forms of life; some may be more advanced than us or we may be unique in our scientific and technological mastery.  The single point of origin is why we share elements of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid, the so-called “building-blocks of life”) with our cats, dogs, goldfish and bananas so, unsurprisingly, in living creatures, eyes are common, often in pairs but unlike those in humans, not all are out-growths of a brain although, in many of the lineages of the Metazoa they are neurally derived and remain tightly integrated with the central nervous system.

A nice pair of boobies.  Charmingly, blue-footed boobies are known to be monogamous, pairs often staying together for life.  Like us, birds are two eyed vertebrates although except for the old outlier (like owls) their eyes, for good reasons, shifted to the sides.  Note how the booby’s eye differs from that of a human.

As a general principle it all depended on the developmental origin and phylogeny (the evolutionary history of groups of organisms).  In vertebrates (mammals, birds, fish etc), the eye evolved as an evagination (a growth outward) of the forebrain during embryogenesis (the process by which an embryo is formed and develops).  Cephalopods (octopus, squid etc) differ in that while the optic lobes of the brain are large and closely connected, the eye is not literally a brain protrusion; thus, while neurally integrated, the eyes are not brain outgrowths.  Arthropods (insects, crustaceans and such) have compound eyes formed from ectodermal (of the The outermost of the three tissue layers in the embryo of a metazoan animal) tissues which connect to the brain via optic nerves and are thus also neurally connected but not developmental extensions of the brain itself.  Many cnidarians (such as the box jellyfish) possess complex lens eyes but lack a centralized brain, their eyes peripheral sensory structures connecting to nerve rings rather than a true brain.  Many invertebrates have relatively simple photoreceptors which can be thought of as “eyespots” which can be distributed across body tissues, the best contemporary comparison probably the sensors now so ubiquitous in electronic devices.

Boobies, one step at a time.

A booby is a seabird in the genus Sula, part of the Sulidae family.  Boobies are closely related to the gannets (Morus), which were formerly included in Sula, the genus created in 1760 by the French naturalist Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723-1806).  The name was derived from súla, the Old Norse and Icelandic word for the other member of the family Sulidae, the gannet.  The English name booby was based on the Spanish bobo (stupid) as the tame birds often landed on board sailing ships, where they were easily captured and eaten.  As well as a popular addition to the diet of sailors for whom meat other than fish was a rarity, it was fortuitous for many, the Admiralty's archives revealing boobies often mentioned as having been caught and eaten by shipwrecked sailors.

Mr Andrew Mountbatten Windsor in police car, under arrest, February, 2026.

If humans had eyes free of a white sclera (like the booby and many birds), our appearance would be quite different, illustrated by a digitally edited image of a green-eyed (former prince/duke/admiral etc) Andrew-Mountbatten Windsor (b 1960), rendered as a line drawing by Vovsoft.  However, the use of that image to demonstrate the point may not have been the best choice because, in the original, his expression didn’t appear greatly different.

As well as charming eyes, boobies also have interesting feet.  The distinctive blue feet (the result of pigments ingested from their diet of fish) also play a part in the bobby’s mating ritual although not exactly in the podophilic sense familiar in a sub-set of humans.  In the spring mating season, the bird’s feet become a bright turquoise blue and, to demonstrate their health and vitality, conspicuously they will display them to potential partners.  The job done, as their eggs hatch, the blue hue fades to something less vivid.  One aspect of their behaviour which amused the ornithologists who first observed it was that if among fishers unloading their catch, it tossed a small fish from the by-catch, a booby will take it and waddle off somewhere to enjoy it in solitude rather than gulping it down as in common in many species.  Like penguins, although ungainly on land, they are skilled plunge divers which used their streamlined bodies and air sacs “fly” through the water, catching their prey at high speed and they hunt in "packs", coordinating their movement to maximize the catch.  Boobies have been recorded diving from as high as 90 m (300 feet), their speed upon entry estimated at around 100 km/h (60 mph).