Language Matters | From ‘Zoom shirts’ to ‘biz-leisure’: how the pandemic altered fashion and the words we use to describe it
- The origins of the word ‘outfit’ have nothing to do with clothing, becoming associated with accessories only in the 19th century
- Now the hashtag OOTD proliferates on social media, albeit often from within a socially distant context in the Covid-19 era
What is an outfit these days if not an OOTD? That acronym, often in hashtag form, is widely used by fashion bloggers for their “outfit of the day”, usually on trend, always photographed.
It may surprise fashionistas to learn that the word “outfit” originally referred, in the mid-18th century, to the act of fitting out or equipping a ship for a journey, expedition or battle – a meaning now obsolete. Another related meaning at that time involved the articles and equipment required for an expedition, later meaning equipment of any kind.
Only in the mid-19th century did outfit’s meaning extend to refer to a set of clothes, often including accessories. An early example comes from R.H. Dana Jnr’s 1840 memoir of his two-year voyage from Boston to California on a merchant ship, describing “the usual outfit of pumps, white stockings, loose white duck trowsers”.
New items have evolved: the work-from-home context requiring a shirt or blouse kept on the back of one’s chair to be quickly presentable for video conferences has given us the “Zoom shirt”. Another 2020 innovation is “biz-leisure”, coined by Harper’s Bazaar magazine – the look amalgamates dressy and more relaxed pieces, and the word compounds the clipped “biz” from business, with “leisure”.
The emergence of quarantine-wear underscores the word “fashion” as the prevailing style of clothing, hair, decoration or behaviour at a particular time. But this isn’t its only meaning.