Bandage (pronounced ban-dij)
(1) A strip of soft cloth or other material used to bind
up a wound, sore, sprain etc, or as a protective compression device to prevent
or limit injury.
(2) Anything used as a band or ligature.
(3) To bind or cover with a bandage; to put a bandage on
a wound, sprain etc, or as a protective compression device to prevent or limit
injury.
(4) In fashion, a type of dress, distinguished from
similar styles by the use of knitted fabrics.
(5) Figuratively, by extension, a provisional or
makeshift solution that provides insufficient coverage or relief (also as
band-aid solution).
1590-1600: From the Middle English bandage (strip of soft
cloth or other material used in binding wounds, stopping bleeding etc), from
the sixteenth century French bandage,
from the Old French bander (to bind),
from bande (a strip). The verb bandage (to dress a wound etc, with
a bandage) dates from 1734 (and was implied in bandaging). Bandage is the spelling in Danish, Dutch, German, English & Swedish but other
languages localized the French including Norwegian Bokmål (bandasje) Polish (bandaż)
& Turkish (bandaj). The spelling in the constructed Esperanto is bandaĝo.
Bandage is a noun, verb
& adjective, bandaged & bandaging are verbs (used with & without an
object) and the noun bandager does exist although use seems restricted to
first-aid manuals. Other words used in
similar vein include dressing, gauze, plaster, swathe, truss, compress, bind
& wrap. The noun plural is bandages.
The noun compress, (in the surgical sense of "soft
mass of linen or other cloth to press against some part of the body (with the
aid of a bandage)”), as an adaptation from the earlier verb, evolved in the
1590s in parallel with bandage. In
earlier use, the noun ligament (band of tough tissue binding bones) was a late
fourteenth century creation from the Latin ligamentum
(a band, bandage, tie, ligature), from ligare
(to bind, tie), from the primitive Indo-European root leig- (to tie, bind) and in the medical literature, ligamental, ligamentous & ligamentary still occasionally appear. One technical term from medicine which seems
extinct is the verb deligate (to bind
up, bandage), noted since 1840 (and implied in deligated), from the Latin deligatus
(bound fast), from deligare (to bind
fast), the construct being de- (from
the Latin dē-, from the preposition dē (of, from); the Old English æf- was a similar prefix) + ligare (to bind).
Under the Raj, the noun puttee (long strip of cloth wound round the
lower leg as protection by soldiers) enjoyed a evolution in spelling typical of
many words in British India, patawa in
1875, puttie by 1886 and the modern
puttee finally (more or less) standardized by 1900). The source was the Hindi patti (band, bandage) from the Sanskrit pattah (strip of cloth). The
noun fascia did have a brief career in medicine, being from the Latin fascia (a
band, bandage, swathe, ribbon), derivative of fascis (bundle (which as fasces
became a familiar form in the twentieth century)). In English, the original use was in architecture,
the anatomical application not noted until 1788 and it’s now also a familiar form
in botany, music, astronomy and interior design, most obviously in cars. The noun bandeau (headband), now much
associated with revolutionaries (and in fashion the emulation) dates from 1706,
from the French bandeau, from the twelfth
century Old French bandel & bendel (bandage, binding), a diminutive
of bande (a band, a strip). As a style of women's top or bra, it was
first described in 1968 and is distinguished from similar styles in being of a
rectangular cut, the hems forming two horizontal lines above and below the
breasts.
The bandage dress
Although the motif of what is called the bandage dress is
clearly identifiable in depictions of women which pre-date antiquity, the
creation of the modern commercial product is credited to the 1980s work of Tunisian couturier Azzedine
Alaïa (1935-2017) but it is with French
designer Hervé Peugnet’s (1957–2017) fashion house Hervé Léger that the style is now most associated.
Charlotte McKinney (b 1993), 2018.The bandage dress is a specific
interpretation of the earlier, figure-hugging bodycon dress, the name
originally a contraction of "body conscious" which the industry would
later morph into "body confidence" in reaction to criticism and in Japan,
they were marketed as ボディコン (bodikon), a spelling better suited to traditional
pronunciation in Japanese. What distinguished
bandage from bodycon was the fabric, the former made not with anything woven, engineered
instead to compress with machine-knitted material, the completed panels left
uncut and assembled to created the finished item. Bandage dresses thus, although truly suitable
for only one body type, because of the compression effect of the knitted fabric,
do (slightly) extend the parameters of the silhouette which can be accommodated
while still being aesthetically successful whereas bodycon dresses made from
fabrics which merely cling rather than smooth out imperfections rely on an
ideally formed frame. For that reason, the
jocular slang “body compression” was sometimes used to describe this sub-set of
the bodycon, the bandage dress working like externally worn shapewear,
corset-like in effect if not quite an actual exoskeleton.
Hervé Léger in 1992 first displayed the
bandage dresses which would come to be the style’s definitive look; instantly popular, they were a red-carpet staple well into the twenty-first
century. Still a big seller, the bandage
dress in 2015 migrated, via the twittersphere, from the fashion section to the front page when the
comments of Patrick Couderc (b 1961, then managing director of Hervé Léger's
British distributor, MJH Fashion), were published. In an interview with the Daily Mail on Sunday, Mr Couderc made it clear he’d prefer it if some
women would avoid buying Hervé Léger’s most famous creation, those on the proscribed
list including lesbians, those beyond a certain age and anyone with a less than
ideal silhouette.
There was an element of classism too in his critique as
he lamented the bandage dress as a victim of its own success, too many now seen
on the wrong-shaped customers and worse still, they were often cheap knock-offs
of the £1,300 (US$1603) originals and thus increasingly associated with reality
TV stars and those working in hair salons.
Admitting dryly “you can be a
victim of your success”, his comments seemed to echo those reported earlier
in the century by the distributers of a high-end cognac and the Maybach,
Daimler-Benz’s ill-fated mistake in thinking what was needed was a brand above Mercedes-Benz which for almost a century
had been good enough for presidents, popes and potentates. Then the complaint had been that drink and
car were finding favor with hip-hop & rap stars and this most interpreted as an
expression of concern the association with people of color might “cheapen the
brand”. Mr Couderc didn’t comment on skin
color but told The Mail he refuses to
give free dresses to celebrities if they are “judged to lack sufficient class”.
Clearly a student of the interplay of sociology and
economics, he allowed his mind to wander wide, recalling that he’d “...never go out to dinner if she’s not wearing
tights. I think hosiery is something
which is very magical in my world and I’m veering off into complete poetry now.
But it’s a social statement because in
the 1980s, the difference between someone who was wearing tights and someone
who was not was very significant.” Clearly
nostalgic for a time when the poor were less inclined to get ideas above their
station, he added that then, “...whoever was
wearing tights was working in a private office in a bank in St James’s and
whoever was not wearing tights was coming to work as a shampooist in a High
Street hairdresser, commuting from Croydon.
We were living in a time where the distinction between the two social
strata was much more significant than today”. How he must long for that vanished, pre-1945 world, when folk from Croydon were deferential to their betters.
The attitude was hardly unique in the
industry, Abercrombie & Fitch early in the century re-built into a highly
profitable company using a model former CEO Mike Jeffries (b circa 1944) described
in a 2006 interview as “exclusionary” noting their clothes were a product in which
“a lot of people don’t belong and they can’t belong.” That really wasn’t an unusual business model
but it was rare for a CEO so bluntly to state the obvious and, when the comments
were published in 2013, Jeffries issued a apology saying "We are
completely opposed to any discrimination, bullying, derogatory
characterizations or other anti-social behavior based on race, gender, body
type or other individual characteristics".
Also controversial was a later comment, attributed in 2013 to (an
unnamed) Abercrombie and Fitch district manager. It’s said the person being interviewed requested anonymity so the statements have never been verified but it was
reported that when asked how the company responds to non-profits asking for donations
of discontinued clothing to be given to the poor and homeless, the reply was “Abercrombie
and Fitch doesn’t want to create the image that just anybody, poor people, can
wear their clothing. Only people of a certain stature are able to purchase and
wear the company name”, to which he added they would rather “burn the clothes”
than risk them being seen on the backs of the poor. Again, while rarely discussed, the practice
of destroying rather than discounting or giving away unsold or discontinued
items is widespread in the industry.
Speaking at Hervé Léger’s boutique in Knightsbridge,
Central London, the like-minded Mr Couderc wasn’t entirely lacking in empathy,
noting “You women have a lot of problems.
You will lose the plot. You will come
and you will put a dress on and you’ll be in front of the mirror, like, ‘Argh,
I’m so fat’”. “Yes, you have a 12th of an inch around your stomach, it’s not really a
disaster, and what you’re not noticing is that your cleavage is about two
inches too low because you are 55 and it’s time that you should not display
everything like you’re 23.” At this
point he did concede the particular virtue of the bandage dress was it could in
such cases “provide useful support” but
that didn’t mean he approved.
How a Hervé Léger bandage dress should hang.
He’d clearly thought about things, his advice to lesbians
(presumably young or old) that “if you’re
a committed lesbian and you are wearing trousers all your life, you won’t want
to buy a Léger dress. Lesbians would
want to be rather butch and leisurely.”
Warming to the topic, he went on to say “voluptuous” women (most drawing the inference he meant "not slender") and those with “very prominent hips and a very flat chest” should wear something else,
adding the handy hint that women must not wear underwear that was too small, because “the knicker line cuts through the flesh and
goes through the other side of the dress” thereby creating the dreaded “visible panty line” (VPL).
Hervé Léger’s Moscow store.Quite what he thought the
reaction to his comments would be isn’t recorded but while his views may not
much have changed since the 1980s, much of the rest of the world now has the
means to respond en masse and what should have been the foreseen twitterstorm quickly gathered, #boycottherveleger & #wecanwearwhateverthefuckwewant soon
trending. Doubtlessly fearing the wrath
of blood-thirsty lesbians, those not slender, chav shampooists and women of a certain
age, Max Azria’s BCBGMAXAZRIA Group (which in 1998 had acquired Hervé Léger), went immediately into crisis management mode, issuing a statement saying they were “...shocked and appalled by Patrick Couderc’s
comments made in the Mail on Sunday. BCBGMAXAZRIA
Group is working in concert with MJH Fashion, the London-based licensee of the
Herve Leger brand, to investigate and establish appropriate next steps. The
statements made by Mr. Couderc are not a reflection of Herve Leger by Max Azria
or MJH Fashion ideals or sentiments.” The
Herve Leger by Max Azria brand celebrates sensuality, glamour and femininity
without discrimination.”
Less than twenty-four hours later, MJH Fashion confirmed
Mr Couderc was no longer employed by the company. Max Azria (1949–2019) in 2016 ended his
connection with BCBGMAXAZRIA and its associated companies and in 2017 the group
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the intellectual property rights
and assets later acquired by the Marquee Brands division of the Global Brands Group. Bandage dresses remain popular.
