Cape & Cloak

Cape (pronounced keyp)

(1) A sleeveless garment of various lengths, fastened around the neck and falling loosely from the shoulders, worn separately or attached to a coat or other outer garment.

(2) The capa of a bullfighter.

(3) The act of caping.

(4) Of a matador or capeador during a bullfight, to induce and guide the charge of a bull by flourishing a capa.

(5) A piece of land jutting into the sea or some other large body of water; a headland or promontory

(6) In nautical use, of a ship said to have good steering qualities or to head or point; to keep a course.

(7) As The Cape (always initial capital letters), pertaining to the Cape of Good Hope or to (historically) to all South Africa.

(8) To skin an animal, particularly a deer.

(9) To gaze or stare; to look for, search after (obsolete).

1350–1400: From the (northern dialect) Middle English cap, from the Old English cāp, from the Middle French cape & Old Provençal capa, from the Vulgar Latin capum from the Latin caput (head) and reinforced in the sixteenth century by the Spanish capa, from the Late Latin cappa (hooded cloak).  A fork in the Late Old English was capa, & cæppe (cloak with a hood), directly from Late Latin.  In Japanese the word is ケープ (kēpu).  The sense of a "promontory, piece of land jutting into a sea or lake" dates from the late fourteenth century, from the Old French cap (cape; head) from the Latin caput (headland, head), from the primitive Indo-European kaput (head).  The Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa has been called the Cape since the 1660s, and sailors in 1769 named the low cloud banks that could be mistaken for landforms on the horizon, Cape fly-away.  The obsolete sense of gazing or staring at something & to look for or search after is from the Middle English capen (to stare, gape, look for, seek), from the Old English capian (to look), from the Proto-West Germanic kapēn.  It was cognate with the Dutch gapen, the German gaffen (to stare at curiously) and the Low German gapen (to stare); related to the Modern English keep.

Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023) in Cappa Magna (great cape) with caudatario (train-bearer).  The church's rituals vie with the Eurovison Song Contest and the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras for having the most variety in men's costuming.

Copes are one of many capes in the extensive wardrobe of Roman Catholic clerics and the highlight of any ecclesiastical fashion parade is the silk cappa magna.  Technically a jurisdictional garment, it’s now rarely seen and worn only in processions or when "in choir" (attending but not celebrating services).  Cardinals wear red and bishops violet and both cardinals and papal nuncios are entitled to a cappa magna of watered silk.  Well into the twentieth century, a cappa magna could stretch for nearly 15 metres, (50 feet) but Pius XII’s (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958) motu proprio (literally “on his own impulse”, essentially constitutionally the same as a royal decree which unilaterally creates law) Valde solliciti (1952) laid down that they should not be longer than 7m (23 feet) and later instructions from the Vatican banned them from Rome and curtailed their use elsewhere.  Valde solliciti translates literally as “very worried” and Pius in 1952 was clearly exactly that, concerned at complaints that the extravagance of the Church’s rituals was inappropriate at a time of such troubled austerity.  There was in 1952 still little sign of the remarkable post-war economic recovery which within a decade would be critiqued in Federico Fellini's (1920–1993) film La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life, 1960).

Actor Anya Taylor-Joy (b 1996) in ankle-length, collared houndstooth cape with matching mini-skirt by Jonathan Anderson (b 1984; creative director of Christian Dior since 2025) over a sleeveless, white, button-down vest and black, stiletto pumps, Paris Fashion Week, October, 2025.

The car is a Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit (1980-1997), the first of the SZ Series platform which would serve the line until 2003.  The Silver Spirit (and the companion LWB (long wheelbase) variant the Silver Spur (1980-2000)) was mechanically little changed from the Silver Shadow (1965-1980) but with styling updated with hints from the still controversial Camargue (1975-1986), a somewhat ungainly two-door saloon designed by Pininfarina which, as an addition to the range which included the conceptually identical Corniche (under various names available since 1966), appeared to have no purpose other than being positioned as the “world’s most expensive car” but that was apparently enough; even in the troubled 1970s, there was a demand for Veblen products.

In the closet: The ensemble awaits.

There were nice touches in the cape, a highlight of the detailing the arpeggiating used for the hem.  In sewing, the arpeggiated stitch is a technique in hand-stitching that creates an invisible and durable finish by catching only a single thread from the main fabric with each stitch.  This demands the hem be folded, turning the garment inside out allowing a hand-held needle to form small, V-shaped stitches by piercing the seam allowance and then the main fabric.  For the necessary robustness to be achieved, the stitching is kept deliberately loose (preventing pulling which would distort the line) with the finished hem pressed and steamed further to conceal the stitch-work.  Obviously labor intensive and therefore expensive to implement, it’s used in garments where the most immaculate finish is desired and although it’s now possible partially to emulate the effect using machine-stitching, the fashion houses know that for their finest, the old ways are best.

Poetry in motion: The lovely Anya Taylor-Joy on the move, illustrating the way the fashion industry cuts its capes to provide a "framing effect" for the rest of the outfit.

Amusingly, although the industry is sensitive to the issue of cultural appropriation (and especially so if matters end up in court), the term “arpeggiated” was “borrowed” from music.  In music, arpeggiate describes the playing of a chord as an arpeggio (the notes of a chord played individually instead of simultaneously, moving usually from lowest to highest but the same word is used whether notes are rising or falling).  It was from the Italian arpeggiare (to play on a harp), the construct being arpa (harp) +‎ -eggiare (a suffix from the Late Latin -izāre and used to form verbs from adjectives or nouns).  The connection comes from the harp’s sound being associated with flowing sequences of notes rather than “block sounds”.  So, the word can be understood as meaning “broken into a rhythmic or sequential pattern, note by note” and the use in sewing (as “arpeggiated stitch”) took the metaphorically from the musical term, referencing a series of short, regularly spaced diagonal or looped stitches that create a flowing, undulating pattern (ie a rising and falling wave-like progression rather than a static block).

Anya Taylor-Joy in cape, swishing around.

Capes often are spoken of as having an “equestrian look” and it’s true capes do have a long tradition on horseback, both in military and civilian use although in fashion the traditional cut of the fabric has evolved into something better thought of as a “framing effect” for what is worn beneath.  That differs from the more enveloping capes worn by those in professions as diverse as cavalry officers and nomadic sheep herders form whom a cape was there to afford protection from the elements and to act as barrier to the dust and mud which is a way of life in such professions.  On the catwalks and red carpets there’s not usually much mud thrown about (other than metaphorically when the “best & worst dressed” lists appear) and the cape is there just for the visual effect.  That effect is best understood on the move because a cape on its hanger is a lifeless thing whereas when on someone walking so it can flow, coming alive; models become expert in exploiting the billowing made possible by the “sail-like” behavior of the fabric when the fluid dynamics of air are allowed to do their stuff.  A skilled model can make a cape swish seductively.

Imelda Marcos (she of “the shoes”, b 1929; First Lady of the Philippines 1965-1986, left) and General Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006; dictator of Chile 1973-1990) at the funeral of Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975), Plaza de Oriente, Madrid, Spain, 23 November, 1975.  Franco was something of a model for Pinochet in terms of approach to public administration (having tiresome people “disappeared” or taken outside and shot etc) but not so much in sartorial matters, the Caudillo never having shown much fondness for capes.

Franco’s body originally was interred in a granite and marble crypt beneath the basilica floor of Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen), a mausoleum & memorial site in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range close to Madrid, built by order of the Generalissimo at the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).  The vast structure, officially opened in 1959, was said the government to be a “national act of atonement” and symbol of reconciliation but controversies about the war and Franco’s subsequent dictatorship were only ever suppressed and in the decades after his death the political and legal manoeuvres to remove from public display all the many relics of the glorification of the victory and dictatorship gathered strength.  In October 2019, his remains were exhumed from the mausoleum and re-interred in the Mingorrubio Cemetery in El Pardo, this time in a family crypt, an event which much divided opinion.  The forces unleashed by the civil war and its decades-long aftermath remain a cleavage in Spanish society and political scientists expect the tensions to continue, even after the war passes from living memory.  In his last public speech a few weeks before his death, Franco had warned the country it remained threatened by a conspiracy involving “communists, left-wing terrorists and Freemasons”.

Cloak (pronounced klohk)

(1) A wrap-like outer garment fastened at the throat and falling straight from the shoulders.

(2) Something that covers or conceals; disguise; pretense.

(3) To cover with or as if with a cloak.

(4) To hide; conceal.

(5) In internet use, a text replacement for an IRC user's hostname or IP address, which makes the user less identifiable.

1175–1225: From the Middle English cloke, from the Old North French cloque, from the Old French cloche & cloke (traveling cloak) from the Medieval Latin cloca (travelers' cape), a variant of clocca (bell-shaped cape (literally “a bell”) and of Celtic origin, from the Proto-Celtic klokkos (and ultimately imitative).  The best known mention of cloak in scripture is in 1 Thessalonians 2:5: For neither at any time “vsed wee flattering wordes, as yee knowe, nor a cloke of couetousnesse, God is witnesse”

The cloak was an article of everyday wear as a protection from the weather for either sex in Europe for centuries, use fluctuating but worn well into the twentieth century, a noted spike happening when revived in the early 1800s as a high-collared circular form fashion garment, then often called a Spanish cloak.  The figurative use "that which covers or conceals; a pretext" dates from the 1520s.  The adjectival phrase cloak-and-dagger is attested from 1848, said to be a translation of the French de cape et d'épée, as something suggestive of stealthy violence and intrigue.  Cloak-and-sword was used from 1806 in reference to the cheap melodramatic romantic adventure stories then published, a similar use to the way sword-and-sandals was used dismissively to refer to the many films made during the 1950s which were set during the Roman Empire.  The cloak-room (or cloakroom), "a room connected with an assembly-hall, opera-house, etc., where cloaks and other articles are temporarily deposited" is attested from 1827 and later extended to railway offices for temporary storage of luggage; by the mid twentieth century it was, like power room and bathroom, one of the many euphemisms for the loo, WC, lavatory.  The undercloak was a similar, lighter garment worn for additional protection under the cloak proper.

The cape and the coat worn as cloak.  A caped Hermann Göring (left), photographed on the way to the lavish celebrations the state staged (and paid for) to mark his 45^th birthday, Berlin, January, 1938 (left) and in sable-trimmed coat with Luffwaffe General Paul Conrath (1896–1979), Soviet Union, 1942 (right). Worn over the shoulders, a coat becomes cloak-like.

Ruthless, energetic and dynamic in the early years of Nazi rule, Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) was the driving force in the build-up of the Luftwaffe (the German air force) but as things went from bad to worse as the fortunes of war changed, he became neglectful of his many responsibilities, described in 1945 upon his arrival at the jail attached to the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg as “a decayed voluptuary”.  However, he never lost his love for military decorations & uniforms, designing many of his own to suit the unique rank of Reichsmarschall (a kind of six-star general or generalissimo) he held including some in white, sky blue and, as the allied armies closed in on Germany, a more military olive green.  He became fond of capes (all that material can conceal corpulence) and had a number tailored to match his uniforms, Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903–1944; Italian foreign minister 1936-1944) in January 1942 noting of Göring’s visit to Rome: “As usual he is bloated and overbearing”, two days later adding “We had dinner at the Excelsior Hotel, and during the dinner Goering talked of little else but the jewels he owned.  In fact, he had some beautiful rings on his fingers… On the way to the station he wore a great sable coat, something between what automobile drivers wore in 1906 and what a high-grade prostitute wears to the opera.”

As well as his vividly entertaining diaries, Ciano was noted for having married the daughter of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943).  The marriage was certainly a good career move (the Italians would joke of the one they called “ducellio”: “the son-in-law also rises”) although things didn’t end well, Il Duce having him shot (at the insistence of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), something which over the years must have drawn the envy of many a father-in-law (a sentiment was expressed by Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who thought his daughters' tastes in men sometimes appalling).  Like the bemedaled Reichsmarschall, the count was also a keen collector of gongs and in 1935, during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (the last war of conquest in the era of European colonialism which even at the time seemed to many an embarrassing anachronism), Ciano had commanded the Regia Aeronautica's (Royal Air Force) 15^th Bomber Flight (nicknamed La Disperata (the desperate ones)) in air-raids on tribal forces equipped with only primitive weapons, being awarded the Medaglia d'argento al valor militare (Silver Medal of Military Valor), prompting some to observe he deserved a gold medal for bravery in accepting a silver one, his time in the air having but barely & briefly exposed him to risk.

The difference

Lindsay Lohan in Lavish Alice striped cape, June 2015.

There probably was a time when the distinction between a cape and a cloak was well defined and understood but opportunistic marketing practices and a declining use of both styles has seen the meaning blur and, in commerce, perhaps morph.  Described correctly, there are differences, defined mostly by length, style and function and what they have in common is that while there are layered versions, generally both are made from one sheet of fabric and worn draped over the shoulders, without sleeves.  The most obvious difference is in length, capes in general being much shorter than cloaks, the length of a cape usually anywhere from the top of the torso to the hips and rarely will a cape fall past the thighs.  By comparison, even the shortest cloak falls below the knees, many are calf-length at minimum and the most luxurious, floor-length.

Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche full-length hooded cloak in black velvet.

Stylistically, cloaks and capes differ also in aesthetic detail.  Capes typically cover the back and are open and loose in the front, fastening around the neck with a tiny hook or cords that tie together, although in recent years it’s become fashionable to tailor capes with button or zipper closures down the front.  Traditionally too, capes have tended to be more colorful and embellished with decoration, reflecting their origin as fashion items whereas the history of the cloak was one of pure functionally, protection from the weather and the dirt and grime of life.  Some capes even come with a belt looped through them, creating the look of a cinched waist with billowing sleeves.  Cloaks cover the front and back.  They are more streamlined, fitted and tailored than capes and, because of the tailoring, in earlier times, a small number of women in society sometimes wore cloaks styled like a dress, adorned with belts, gloves and jewelry.  This is rarely done today, but a cloak is still dressier than a cape or coat and can be stunning if worn over an evening gown.  As that suggests, the cloak could function as a social signifier of rank or wealth; although worn by all for warmth, a garment of made from an expensive material or lined with silk was clearly beyond what was needed to fend off mud from the street.

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) in calf-length cloak over taffeta.

Because of its origins as something protective, hoods are more commonly seen on cloaks; rare on capes which may have a collar for added warmth bit often not even that.  It’s value as a fashion piece aside, a cape’s main function is to cover the back of the wearer, just for warmth.  Because a cape is much shorter than a cloak, slit openings for the arms are not always necessary because arms easily pass through the bottom opening whereas a cloak usually has slit openings for the arms since the length demands it.  Cloaks were supplanted by coats in the post-war years and exist now mostly as a high-fashion pieces, capes in a similar niche in the lower-end of the market.

The cloak as workwear

Cloak and axe of Giovanni Battista Bugatti (1779–1869), official executioner for the Papal States 1796-1864, Criminology Museum of Rome.  Woodcuts and other depictions from the era suggest the blood-red cloak wasn't always worn during executions. 

Giovanni Battista Bugatti began his career at a youthful 17 under Pius VI (1717–1799; pope 1775-1799) and diligently he served six pontiffs before being pensioned off by Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878), his retirement induced not by the Holy See losing enthusiasm for the death penalty because one Antonio Balducci succeeded him in the office which fell into disuse only with the loss of the Papal States (756-1870; a conglomeration of territories in the central & northern Italian peninsula under the personal sovereignty of the pope), after the unification of Italy.  Unlike his illustrious predecessor, history has recorded little about Signor Balducci although it’s known he performed his final execution in 1870.  Signor Bugatti was by far the longest-serving of the Papal States’ many executioners and locals dubbed him Mastro Titta, a titular corruption of maestro di giustizia (master of justice) and his 69 year tenure in his unusual role can be accounted for only by either (1) he felt dispatching the condemned a calling or (2) he really enjoyed his work, because his employers were most parsimonious: he received no retainer and only a small fee per commission (although he was granted a small, official residence).  His tenure was long and included 516 victims (he preferred to call them “patients”, the term adopted also by Romans who enjoyed the darkly humorous) but was only ever a part-time gig; most of his income came from his work as an umbrella painter (a part of the labour market which exists still in an artisan niche).  Depending on this and that, his devices included the axe, guillotine, noose or mallet while the offences punished ranged from the serious (murder, conspiracy, sedition etc) to the petty (habitual thieves and trouble-makers).

Cardinal Pietro Gasparri (1852–1934; Cardinal Secretary of State 1914-1930, left) and Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943, right), signing the Lateran Treaty, Lateran Palace, Rome, 11 February 1929.

Although as early as 1786 the Grand Duchy of Tuscany became the first Italian state to abolish the death penalty (torture also banned), the sentence remained on the books in the Papal States; then as now, the poor disproportionately were victims of the sanction, similar (or worse) crimes by the bourgeoisie or nobility usually handled with less severity, “hushed-up” or just ignored, an aspect in the administration of justice not unknown in modern, Western liberal democracies.  With the loss of the Papal States, the pope’s temporal domain shrunk to little more than what lay around St Peter’s Square; indeed between 1870 and the signing of Lateran Treaty (1929) after which the Italian state recognized Vatican City as a sovereign state, no pope left the Vatican, their status as self-imposed prisoners a political gesture.  The Lateran treaty acknowledged the validity of the sentence (Article 8 of the 1929 Vatican City Penal Code stating anyone who attempted to assassinate the pope would be subject to the death penalty) although this provision was never used, tempted though some popes must have been.  Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) in 1969 struck capital punishment from the Vatican's legal code and the last reference to the sanction vanished in 2001 under Saint John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005).  Although some states are believed to have (secretly) on the payroll one or more "executioners", retained to arrange assassinations when required, it's not believed the Vatican still has one.  

Thinspo

Thinspo (pronounced thin-spoh)

(1) Material created, curated or used (distributed almost exclusively in digital form) to inspire thinness or weight loss.

(2) A sub-set of the pro-ana community which exists to support those on a spectrum ranging from obsessive dieters to those who have chosen as a lifestyle a managed form of anorexia nervosa.

2005–2010: The short form of thinspiration, the construct being thin +‎ (in)spiration.  Thin was from the Middle English thinne, thünne & thenne, from the Old English þynne, from the Proto-West Germanic þunnī, from the Proto-Germanic þunnuz (thin) (and related to þanjaną (to stretch, spread out)), from the primitive Indo-European ténhus (thin), from ten- (to stretch).  It was cognate with the German dünn, the Dutch dun, the West Frisian tin, the Icelandic þunnur, the Danish tynd, the Swedish tunn, the Latin tenuis, the Irish tanaí, the Welsh tenau, the Latvian tievs, the Sanskrit तनु (tanú) (thin) and the Persian تنگ‎ (tang) (narrow). A doublet of tenuis, it was related also to tenuous.  Inspiration was from the Middle English inspiracioun, from the Old French inspiration, from the Late Latin īnspīrātiōnem (nominative īnspīrātiō), from the Classical Latin īnspīrātus (past participle of inspīrō).  It displaced the native Old English onbryrdnes (literally “in-pricked-ness”).  Thinspo inspired others forms such as fitspo (encouraging fitness) and blondespo (advocating being blonde) and between thinspo and fitspo, critics noted some overlap, suspecting that in at least some cases the later identity is assumed as an attempt at disguise.  Thinspo & thinspiration are nouns; the noun plural is thinspos.  Derived forms like the nouns thinspirationist & thinspirationism do appear but are non-standard.

Thinspo's idealized bone definition.

The companion term ribspro (the short form of ribspiration (known also as bonespo)) is a particular genre within thinspo.  Whereas thinspo material can be long or short-form text, diagrams or images, ribspro is almost exclusively visual, the text limited to perhaps a few admiring or encouraging words and, as the names suggest, the focus is on ribcages or other bones proximately defined against taut skin.  Backbones, ribs, clavicles and hipbones seem the most favored, presumably because they tend to provide the most definitional contrast but there’s also the suspicion they're the particular aesthetic construct the thinspo community finds most attractive (unlike a knee or elbow which, however boney, seems not to be thought photogenic).  Another genre (a kind of applied thinspo) within the community is meanspo (the short form of mean inspiration), from the “tough love” or “cruel to be kind” tradition of weight loss and this school of thought advocates issuing critical and insulting comments to those considered “insufficiently thin enough”, the rationale being this will convince them to reduce intake, exercise more, purge and thus lose weight.  The thinspo ecosystem has also proliferated thematic variations such as “vegan thinspo” although that seems at least to some extent opportunistic given the most extreme of the thinspo operatives had long since banished animal products, regarding recommendations like “lean meat” or “chicken strips” as just so much fat.

Thinspo images often are rendered in grayscale, and that may have stated in in a nod to the aesthetic of art-house photography or simply because in monochrome the bone definition is more pronounced, a function of the contrast of light & shadow exploited by artists working with the chiaroscuro technique.  Whatever the origin, "black & white" became a thinspo motif although the B&A (before & after) posters appear to stick to original, full-color images. 

Like much in the pro-ana community, thinspo sites exist on a spectrum, those thought innocuous left to continue while any judged to be encouraging eating disorders subject to being shutdown although the efforts undertaken by (and sometimes imposed on) the platforms is a Sisyphean struggle, content shifting between hosts as required.  It’s also organic in that thinspo, like all that’s curated by the pro-ana community, is just another function of the supply & demand curve.  The supply of pro-ana content exists because of demand and in a manner familiar to behavioral economists, the ecosystem is symbiotic, the two forces acting upon and encouraging the growth of the other.  Like much that is on-line, some of the material blatantly is fake, something most obviously detected in the dubious B&A photos which appear with frequent duplication.  

Whether there were statistically significant differences in the nature of the content of thinspo and fitspo (a clipping of fitspiration (the construct being fit + (in)spiration) sites (featuring images and other material designed to trigger a motivation to exercise and enhance physical fitness) attracted academic interest and there were studies, the results differing in detail (there were widely divergent results depending on the platform analyzed which was thought to be a reflection more of the degree of success a platform achieved in enforcing its policies than any difference in the collective user profile) but displaying the same general trends: Thinspo sites portrayed body parts with more than twice the frequency of fitspo and posts highlighting bony body features and references to mental illness were overwhelmingly almost specific to thinspo.  Interestingly, the differences between fitspo & thinspo relating to sexually suggestive images, appearance comparison and messages encouraging restrictive eating were striking and almost wholly correlated with the platform on which they were posted.  The more extreme of the forks such as self harm (such as the cutter subset) also appear on thinspo sites.

Thinspo Rules

Thinspirationism: A blonde Lindsay Lohan during thinspo pin-up phase, 2005.

(1) Never eat something just because you want to finish it.  Eat only enough to stop the worst of the hunger pangs and don’t eat until sated; those extra bites add up.

(2) Don’t let emotions take over and eat only if hungry.  Stop yourself once you start eating if you know it’s for the wrong reasons.  The right reason is pangs of hunger; there is no other reason.

(3) If you catch yourself in a binge, stop the moment you realize.  Don’t forgive yourself for screwing up; it will only permit you to screw up again.  If you have binged, it must in some way be atoned for and than can be an increased energy burn (ie more exercise) or intake deprivation (eg skipping next meal).

(4) Every calorie counts so review every recipe and remove as many calories as possible.  Where available, choose the low cal version (but study nutritional-content labels because tags like "diet" or "97% fat-free" can be deceptive and misleading) and drink water (unmodified soda water is fine), black tea or black coffee instead of other beverages.  Avoid zero-cal sweeteners because (1) they’re a chemical cocktail and (2) the thinspo goal is completely to cure the body’s natural sugar addiction.  Artificial sweeteners may be equated with opioid substitutes such as methadone and while clinically there may be good reasons for a patient seeking to cease using heroin to be proscribed methadone, sugar is like nicotine: highly addictive but weak and able (chemically) to be withdrawn from within days.  Some will find the psychological addiction lingers longer but often that's associative (as it is with the social link between drinking alcohol and smoking).  The general principle is it's not good to replace one addiction with another so with added sugar the answer is "cold turkey", not packets of powdered chemicals.  The body does of course need sugar (it works essentially by converting intake into sugars the muscles, brain and other organs can use) but your intake should be exclusively in natural (unprocessed) sugars like those in green apples.    

(5) Don’t feel guilt about wasting food.  The undesirability on environmental grounds is noted but the sooner you change yourself, the better and as you hone your techniques, losses can be reduced to close to zero.  Set a goal always not to eat everything you’re served and gradually increase this quantity.  Before long, you’ll be throwing away food without barely a thought and if you have a garden or outdoor pot-plants, most organic waste can be chopped up or mushed to be mixed with water and added to the soil (plants will use the nutrients and eventually, the residue become soil).

(6) Eat slowly, savoring each bite.  Thinspo does not mean ceasing to enjoy food; it means the opposite because it makes every bite a rare and valued treat.  Thinspo life is like a rugby test in which only one try is scored but it is celebrated whereas "normal" life is like a rugby sevens game in which there may be two-dozen trys: after the first few they cease to be exceptional.  We evolved quickly (in biological terms) from creatures which had to hunt or gather every bite of the fat, salt & sugar we craved to survive but, with the same biology, we now live often sedentary lives among shelves laden with fat, salt & sugar, all within reach and sometimes packaged conveniently for instant consumption.  It is the curse of plenty. 

(7) Drink water during meals, as much as you can manage but, as a general principle, don't go beyond 6 litres (1.3 gallons (UK) 1.6 (US)); this is well short of of water's toxicity threshold but there's both a law of diminishing returns and a point at which water-intake becomes counter-productive.  Water curbs hunger, is filling, aids in digestion and maintains hydration which has many benefits.  Water has zero calories and can be taken as ice.

(8) Chew food more, taking at least one full breath after every bite.  While it will vary according to what’s being eaten, as a guide, chew 20-30 times for each mouthful. This not only assists digestion but slows the pace of eating, reducing consumption.

(9) Cut food into smaller pieces which (1) slows the process of eating, (2) can make you think you’re eating more (there's nothing wrong with fooling yourself if self-aware) and (3) it will make other people think you ate more (in some circumstances it can be helpful to fool others).

Thinspirationist: Actor Lily Collins (b 1989) in a semi-sheer white Calvin Klein ensemble, the cropped spaghetti-strap top and knee-length pencil skirt, both embellished with scale sequins, New York Fashion Week, New York City, September, 2025.  Note the pleasing definition of the sinews (arrowed, centre).  The hair-style is a chin-length bob.

(10) Associate unhealthy food with something else: ice cream with saturated fat, bread with carbs, juice with sugar etc.  Concrete visual examples are also helpful: imagine cake as fat sitting in and adding bulk to your thighs, chips as a permanent lining adding mass to the stomach etc.

(11) Learn from other people eating because while there are individual variations, overall, the patterns should be consistent.  Watch skinny people and apply their principles to your own diet; watch fat people with disgust and revulsion, avoiding what they do.

(12) Decide beforehand how much you are going to eat and never eat more.  If cooking, cook only one serving, so you can’t eat anymore.  The ideal model is to have no food in the house and each day buy only what you’re that day allowed.  It can at first be difficult but can be done and if stuck to, it’s a foolproof diet because you cannot eat what's not there.  If on the day you've not been able to buy food, you must fast and take in only water or black tea and coffee.  You won't enjoy it but it's good for you and may inspire you to add one or two "fast days" to the weekly cycle.

Lindsay Lohan shopping on Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, 2009.  Her thinspo pin-up career long out-lasted her blonde phase.

(13) Always remind yourself of your goals and rewards.  Keep track of daily nutrient and food goals (some use a diet minder journal or tracking app but the best method is whatever works for you).  Weigh yourself twice a day (before morning coffee and just before going to bed), the goal being always to see a lower number than previous weigh-in.  If you have achieved a target weight and operate within a daily variation of +/- 100g, that is acceptable although that's also technologically deterministic: if your digital scales report in 50g increments, reduce your acceptable variability to that level for if God has given us such scales, She's trying to tell us something.

(14) Don’t eat 2½ hours before bed.  This time window can be increased but not reduced.

(15) You’ll be sometimes compelled to eat with friends or family so develop techniques surreptitiously to dispose of food.  You’ll get good at knowing where to sit so one hand can always be unseen and a good trick is to wear clothes with big pockets you can line with plastic bags.  Sit somewhere which makes disposal simple (open windows ideal, large pot plants can work) and develop a suite of reasons to ask to sit in certain spots.

(16) Don't be tempted to take up smoking or vaping.  While it can't be denied smoking often works as an appetite suppressant (all those commendably slender catwalk models can't be wrong), inhaling a known carcinogen is unwise because not only does it shorten lifespan (it seems on average by about a decade although the numbers do bounce around) but even while one remains alive it can induce or worsen many illnesses and other conditions.  While in the long run we're all dead and one should die thin, the object is to live thin for as long as life remains enchanting and what smoking does is tend to reduce life expectancy.  The numbers need to be understood because while dying at 75 rather that 85 may not (vied from decades afar) sound that bad, smoking directly can kill those in their twenties or thirties.  There are better ways (see 1-15 above) to lose weight and the evidence on vaping is mixed.  It's too soon to tell what the long-term health outcomes will be but there is anecdotal evidence flavored vapes can stimulate one's appetite and that makes sense because so many use tastes the mind associates with "sweet".  There's only one acceptable form of addiction: diet & exercise.     

Etching

Etching (pronounced ech-ing)

(1) The art, act or process of making designs or pictures on a metal plate, glass etc, by the corrosive action of an acid instead of by a burin.

(2) An impression, as on paper, taken from an etched plate.

(3) The design so produced.

(4) A flat (usually metal) plate bearing such a design.

1625–1635: The construct was etch + -ing.  The verb etch was from the Dutch etsen (to engrave by eating away the surface of with acids), from the German ätzen (to etch), from the Old High German azzon (to cause to bite or feed), from the Proto-Germanic atjaną, causative of etaną (to eat), from the primitive Indo-European root ed- (to eat) (from these sources English gained “eat”).  The suffix –ing was from the Middle English -ing, from the Old English –ing & -ung (in the sense of the modern -ing, as a suffix forming nouns from verbs), from the Proto-West Germanic –ingu & -ungu, from the Proto-Germanic –ingō & -ungō. It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian -enge, the West Frisian –ing, the Dutch –ing, The Low German –ing & -ink, the German –ung, the Swedish -ing and the Icelandic –ing; All the cognate forms were used for the same purpose as the English -ing).  The “etching scribe” was a needle-sharp steel tool for incising into plates in etching and the production of dry points.  Etching is a noun & verb; the noun plural is etchings.

The noun was the present participle and gerund of etch (the verbal noun from the verb etch) and was used also in the sense of “the art of engraving”; by the 1760s, it was used also to mean “a print etc, made from an etched plate" and the plates themselves.  The term etching (to cut into a surface with an acid or other corrosive substance in order to make a pattern) is most associated with the creation of printing plates for the production of artistic works but the technique was used also as a way to render decorative patterns on metal.  In modern use, it’s also a term used in the making of circuit boards.  In idiomatic use (often as “etched in the memory”), it’s used of events, ideas etc which are especially memorable (for reasons good and ill) and as a slang word meaning “to sketch; quickly to draw”.  The Etch A Sketch drawing toy was introduced 1960 by Ohio Art Company; a kind of miniature plotter, it was a screen with two knobs which moved a stylus horizontally & vertically, displacing an aluminum powder to produce solid lines.  To delete the creation, the user physically shook the device which returned the powder to its original position, blanking the screen.

Rembrandt's Jan Asselyn, Painter (1646) (left) and Faust (circa 1652).  Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669)) wasn’t the most prolific etcher but remains among the most famous and his output provides an illustrative case-study in the evolution of his mastering of the technique, his early work really quite diffident compared with his later boldness.

What came to be known as etching gained the name from the Germanic family of words meaning “eat & “to eat”, the transferred sense an allusion to the acid which literally would “eat the metal”.   Etching is an intaglio (from the Italian intagliare (to engrave)) technique in printmaking, a term which includes methods such as hard and soft ground etching, engraving, dry-point, mezzotint and aquatint, all of which use an ink transferring process.  In this, a design is etched into a plate, the ink added over the whole surface plate before a scrim (historically starched cheesecloth) is used to force the ink into the etched areas and remove any excess.  Subsequently, the plate (along with dampened paper) is run through a press at high pressure, forcing the paper into etched areas containing the ink.  The earliest known signed and dated etching was created by Swiss Renaissance goldsmith Urs Graf (circa 1485-circa 1525) in 1513 and it’s from those who worked with gold that almost all forms of engraving are ultimately derived.

Lindsay Lohan, 1998, rendered in the style of etchings.

A phrase which was so beloved by comedy writers in the early-mid twentieth century that it became a cliché was “Want to come up and see my etchings?”, a euphemism for seduction.  Probably now a “stranded phrase”, the saying was based on some fragments of text in a novel by Horatio Alger Jr (1832–1899), a US author regarded as the first to formalize as genre fiction the “rags-to-riches” stories which had since the early days of the republic been the essence of the “American Dream” although it wasn’t until the twentieth century the term came into common use (often it’s now used ironically).

The practice of making etchings, woodcuts or engravings of famous paintings became popular, both artistically and commercially (which may for this purpose be much the same thing) in the late sixteenth century and developed over the next 250-odd years, an evolution tied closely to technological progress in printmaking and the materials available to artists.  The trend seems to have been accelerated by the spread in northern Europe (notably certain districts in Antwerp, Rome and Paris) of copperplate etching & engraving and while it may be dubious to draw conclusions from the works which have survived, the artists most re-produced clearly included Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, circa 1490-1576), Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, 1483–1520) and Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni; 1475–1564), the most prolific in the business of reproductive engraving including the Dutch specialist Cornelis Cort (circa 1533–circa 1578 and known in Italy where he spent his final years as Cornelio Fiammingo) and the Flemish Sadeler family, scions of which operated in many European cities.

Melencolia I (Melancholy I (1514)), etching by the German painter & printmaker Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528).

By the seventeenth century, the practice was well established and an entrenched part of the art market, fulfilling some of the functions which would later be absorbed by photography and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), among others, employed in his studio engravers whose task was to reproduce his paintings for sale with those etchings available in a variety of sizes (and thus price-points so there’s little which is new in the structures of the modern art market).  Again, in the eighteenth century, technological determinism interplayed with public taste as techniques were refined to adapt the works to what wasn’t exactly a production line but certainly an arrangement which made possible larger and more rapid volumes with printing houses commissioning runs (which could be in the hundreds) of engravings following (faithfully and not) British and Continental paintings, advances in mezzotint meaning a greater tonal range had become possible, mimicking the light and shade of oil paintings.  In genteel homes, various institutions and even museums, it was entirely respectable to have hanging: “prints after the Old Masters”.

But as technology giveth, so can it taketh away and it was the late eighteenth century invention of lithography and, a few decades later photography, which triggered a decline in demand, the constantly improving quality of the new mediums gradually displacing reproductive etching in the marketplace although the tradition didn’t die as artists such as Francisco Goya (1746–1828), Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) and Édouard Manet (1832–1883) maintained (or, in a sense, “revived”) etching as a creative rather than reproductive discipline and historians regards the early-mid nineteenth century as the era in which etching became a legitimate genre in art and not merely a means cheaply of distributing representations of existing works.

Self portrait: reflection (1996), etching by Lucian Freud (1922–2011).

Under modern copyright law, as a general principle, the selling of etchings of works still in copyright is not lawful without the permission from the holder of the rights and while details differ between jurisdictions, the basic rule of modern law (the Berne Convention, EU directives, national statutes) is that the sale (or even public display) of a reproduction or derivative work (the latter something which obviously follows without being an obvious duplicate of a copyrighted artwork) requires the consent of the copyright owner.  That protection tends in most jurisdictions to last 70 years after the death of the artist (the “life + 70” rule) and what matters is not that a reproduction is new (in the sense of the physical object) but that it is derivative because (1) to a high degree it emulates the composition, form(s), and expression of the original and (2) in appearance it to a high degree resembles a pre-existing, protected work.  Thus, if produced and offered for sale without permission, the object will infringe on the rights of whoever holds exclusive or delegated rights of reproduction or adaptation.  With exact or close replicas it’s not difficult for court to determine whether rights have been violated but at the margins, such as where works are “in the style of”, of “influenced by”, judgments are made on a case-by-case basis, the best publicized in recent years being those involving pop music.

The Lovers (circa 1528), etching by Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, 1503-1540) of the Italian Mannerist school.

All that means is one (usually) can sell reproductions of works by those dead for at least 70 years and even works “in their style” as long as there’s no attempt to misrepresent them as the product of their original artist’s hand.  There are in copyright exceptions such as “fair dealing” & “fair use” but their range is narrow and limited to fields such as criticism, review, education or satire and does not extend to normal commercial transactions.  Additionally, there’s a work-around in that if something is found to have been sufficiently “transformed”, it can be regarded as a new work but this exception tightly is policed and the threshold high.  Additionally, in recent years, as museums and galleries have put content on-line, what has emerged is the additional complication of such an institution hanging on its walls paintings long out of copyright yet asserting copyright on its commissioned photographs of those works.  That development must have delighted lawyers working in the lucrative field but the courts came to read-down the scope, most following the principles explained in an action before the US Federal District Court (Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., 36 F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), which held (1) copyright in a photograph can in many cases exist but, (2) if a photograph is a “purely mechanical copy of a public-domain work” there usually no protection, even if the taking of the image required technical skill in lighting, angle selection and such.

Morphinomanes (Morphine Addicts, 1887), etching and and drypoint by French artist Albert Besnard (1849–1934).

There was still something for the lawyers because inherently there remained two separate layers of rights at play: (1) copyright (intellectual property) which belongs usually to the artist or their estate and (2) the property rights (ownership of the physical object) which are held by whomever may possess lawful title to the object (this may align with possession but not of necessity).  In other words a museum will likely own the paint & canvas yet not the copyright, something analogous with the discovery made by the few diligent souls who troubled themselves to read the small print they’d agreed to when installing software: in most cases one had lawful title to the physical media (diskette, CD, DVD etc) but often nothing more than a revocable licence to use a single instance of the software. It’s possible lawfully to produce and sell etchings of Goya (the artist having had the decency to drop dead more than 70 years ago) but one may not without permission reproduce or trace from a museum’s copyrighted photo of a Goya (and institutions sometimes maintain separate conditions of use for low and high-resolution images).  Even if one paints, draws or etches by hand, depending on this and that, a court can still hold there’s been a “substantial reproduction” of the composition, colour and such has been effected and thus there’s been an infringement of the underlying copyright.  So, the rules in this area are (1) proceed with caution if producing art not wholly original and (2) if a young lady is asked: “Want to come up and see my etchings?”, she should proceed with caution.