Satin gazar and other fabrics

There aren't many words I come across that aren't in the Oxford English Dictionary, but one such word is gazar. I went to Buckingham Palace today to view the state rooms during the annual summer opening and this summer the wedding dress of the Duchess of Cambridge (the former Kate Middleton) is on display. It is made of satin gazar.

 

This fabric was only developed in the 1950s, and was popularised in the 1960s by the Spanish designer Balenciaga in his evening and cocktail dress designs (here's one). It is a sort of stiff organza, so is very useful for a wedding dress with a long train as it keeps its shape.

 

Gazar is in smaller dictionaries in the Oxford stable, for instance the 2010 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE). The definition is "a stiff gauzy kind of silk fabric", and the dictionary says that it comes from the word gauze, which is from the French gaze. The OED says that the 17th-century philologist and historian du Cange suggests that the word may be named after Gaza, then part of the Ottoman Empire. The OED says that there is no evidence for this, however.

 

Many fabrics are named after towns or places. Astrakhan is named after the Russian city, nankeen after the old name for the Chinese city of Nanking, cashmere is from Kashmir, calico from the Indian town of Calicut, jersey comes from the Channel Island of Jersey, paisley is named after the Scottish town of that name, damask is named after Damascus, denim came from the phrase de Nîmes (from the French town of Nîmes) and cambric is named after the once-powerful Cambrai, now in France very near the Belgian border. Viyella is named after the Via Gellia valley in Derbyshire, England, where the manufacturing mills were located. Muslin is named after the Iraqi town of Mosul, where Europeans first came across this fabric. Marco Polo mentions musolini, or muslin sellers, in his writings. Organza is possibly named after the once very important silk-trading town of Urganj on the Silk Road, now located on the Turkmen/Uzbek border.

Comments

[Alison Gauld]

Which bit of the dress is ivory satin gazar? Is it underneath the embroidery of the 4 national flowers? I thought Sarah Burton used canvas sections to keep the train in place?

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks for reading and for your comment, Alison. Yes, the embroidered flowers are sewn on to the satin. The train is weighted with canvas, but that's under the satin. This article is quite helpful http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG8652535/Kate-Middletons-wedding-dress-secrets-revealed-by-designer-Sarah-Burton.html