As I was recently translating a novel into French I was once again struck by the lack of direct possibilities for some very straight-forward words and expressions in the sartorial field:
“Costello was a swarthy man in his fifties, with a generous nose, a lined face, and olive-black hair combed straight back. He wore an impeccably cut drape suit, its navy-blue fabric making his sunlamp tan look all the more unnatural.” (Ray Celestin, The Mobster’s Lament, 2018).
Talking about a drape suit is transparent enough for an English speaker even if you’re not a sartorial aficionado. The problem is that the phrase is without equivalent in French.
Actually, there’s only one — ‘le drape suit’. Which, obviously, is self-explaining if you’re well-versed in the sartorial lore but remains impenetrable to the layman. The consummate professional that I claim to be was able to find a tentative solution (“une coupe ample”) but while satisfactory in this text, it is still below the mark, or rather just aside. If you say “une coupe ample” you are describing the cut in a slightly subjective manner while drape suit is about an established genre. The drape suit is a well-defined style with a specific history whereas “une coupe ample” is just your perception of someone’s garment.
In this instance, the drape suit is a typical example of an American style sported in the 1940s and the author mentioning it is not by chance, but because it helps paint the atmosphere of this thriller taking place in 1947.
So while coupe ample may be a good equivalent for this text, it can never be an equivalent in the language as the wording itself is a cultural fact, which by definition cannot be translated. You don’t translate the word pizza or shmuck. You can explain the words but that’s not the same as using them. Hence the borrowings between languages.
One may think technical words would translate without too much problem. And yet, there are limits and nuances. Take “padding” and épaulette: they both refer to the construction of the shoulder but the noun “padding” is derived from the verb pad, and connotes the thickness needed to fill a void, while épaulette is the thing itself (it comes from épaule, the shoulder) and can also refer to the shoulder piece used as a military ornament. Again, while padding can be understood by anyone, épaulette can be ambiguous and slightly obscure if you don’t know how a suit shoulder is made.
Don’t think fabrics and shoes are different.
‘He wore a charcoal-brown herringbone tweed jacket with suede elbow patches, a tobacco-brown sweater vest, a tan oxford-cloth shirt with a button-down collar, a chocolate-brown knit tie. His trousers were fawn cavalry twill, his shoes brown with wing tips’. (Lawrence Block, The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling, 1981)
Things are complicated enough in English with the near overlap of “cavalry twill”, “whipcord”, “bedford”, and “gabardine”. The French tends to use the technical term for that sort of weave, which is sergé — so sergé de cavalerie does exist. Except nobody would use the terms except specialists… who will resort to using the English anyway! So that, for my translation, I would probably fall back on the French gabardine as a safer choice — although it is not exactly the same— because a French reader would understand the word. And what about the “wingtips”? Strangely enough, in French they are described as ‘golf tips’. But, there again, apart from sartorial amateurs, very few people would know what it means. So no matter what the translator may try, the term sounds very technical while “brogues” and “wingtips” are common enough in English.
(Crockett & Jones wingtips)
The same is true of aesthetic terms. I recently stumbled over the phrase “(in)formal outfits”, where the parenthesis implied “either formal or not”. But the French formel et informel although very close and in some cases quite apposite translations, were in this instance very wrong as they rather mean “stiff” or “official” (formel) and “unofficial” (informel, a recent borrowing from American English). So I went for “costume” as opposed to “décontracté”, which is the equivalent of formal and casual. But, obviously again, the French wording is not symmetrical, contrary to the English. That’s probably why French brands do not shy from saying “formel” and “informel” the English way, although it grates a bit— tenue formelle would normally mean a uniform or white tie and tenue informelle is simply a very weird word association.
And the list goes on. Of course, translating a novel and a piece for sartorial connoisseurs is not the same. And that is all the more disturbing because depending on the textual genre you’re dealing with, there are things that will sound strange and others that will suddenly become acceptable. But then, after all, clothes are the same—an outfit that will be considered sophisticated and refined and elegant in the street will be looked down on as too casual at a board meeting… For words or clothes—context is everything.
How Europe and Carney disrupted Trump's ceremony of self-anointment: "Davos is a rational ritual" @himself.bsky.social
(Plus- Frank Costello)
Grappling with geopolitics: https://roughlydaily.com/2026/01/26/ritual-and-ceremony-in-their-due-times-kept-the-world-under-the-sky-and-the-stars-in-their-courses-it-was-astonishing-what-ritual-and-ceremony-could-do/
