Talk:Charvet Place Vendôme

Literary allusions

Although quotations can be useful for giving insight into the subject, I'm not seeing anything here that really adds to the reader's understanding of the Charvet brand. If it's mentioned a lot in fiction as a sign of quality, we can explain that in a simple sentence, rather than letting the reader do the hard work of interpreting the weight and significance of fifty-one (!) disparate quotes.

What do other editors think? --McGeddon (talk) 11:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I do not agree with you inasfar as these quotations describe a field of connotations; but I agree with you that the present form is too heavy, quotes are not put in perspective and reorganization is needed. For the time being, I shall move them to a wikiquote page. Thanks for the advice.Racconish (talk) 11:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for working on the wikiquote migration. Are you intending to reduce and summarise the remaining article quotes, or is the current version how you intend to leave it? --McGeddon (talk) 11:50, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I actually intend to reorganize completely this section, as soon as I have time. Racconish (talk) 16:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

That's an impressively diligent piece of organisation, but I'm afraid I'm still not sure that it really adds anything to the article to have it there, even hidden behind references. A lot of Wikipedia article subjects are heavily referenced in fiction, but we don't list every appearance we can find, as this doesn't add very much value to the article. If reading through and judging the merit of each quote would ultimately add to the reader's understanding of the subject, we should try to do that for them, and try to summarise what they'd find (ideally by quoting a literary critic who's had something to say about Charvet's appearances in fiction, but a neutral summary could suffice).

Pulling out the Proust quote is fine, but I think we can quietly lose the rest under a one-sentence blanket of "The Charvet brand is often referenced in fiction to convey...", with maybe three or four "particularly in such works as" examples. We really shouldn't force the reader to do the hard work here, and we should help to put it into context, rather than saying "here are fifty quotes; we'll leave you to work out whether this is a lot, or a few, and what period they tend to be from, and how it compares to the mentions of clothes of other designers in 20th century fiction". --McGeddon (talk) 23:07, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your constructive advices and agree on the principle. This is very helpful. Thanks, Racconish (talk) 06:37, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Happy to help, and thanks for your hard work on the article. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you have any questions. --McGeddon (talk) 07:39, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Complete removal?

As a consequence of a recent edit by Calliopejen1, the section entitled "Literary allusions and brand image" was removed with the following comment: "rm - this is inappropriate use of primary sources. there needs to be a secondary source making this synthesize before you quote novels to draw these conclusion". Here are some comments:

• In accordance with WP:RM, it could have been better to start by discussing the issue here, for the following reasons:
  • The question had already been discussed here;
  • A consensus seemed to have been found (cf. comment on revision 247359874 of October 24, 2008 by Synthesis occurs when an editor puts together multiple sources to reach a novel conclusion that is not in any of the sources);
  • This talk page is listed on WikiProject Fashion precisely to facilitate such potentially constructive discussion.
• Concerning the alleged inappropriate use of primary sources:
  • With reference to WP:NOR, I can only agree that "all interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source".
  • Yet, with reference to another section of WP:NOR, "synthesis occurs when an editor puts together multiple sources to reach a novel conclusion that is not in any of the sources".
  • In my opinion, "summarising", to use McGeddon's word, is not synthesising. Let me take a practical example. The argument beeing to illustrate of the reference to the brand was used to describe socially a character by its external appearance, I tried to summarise a rather long - single - passage or Evelyn Waugh's Razor's edge where Elliott has bespoke underwear monogramed with a count's crown. In one word, I considered the reference to the brand was evoking "nobility". Now, I do not pretend I chose the best possible single word for such summary, and I would be very happy to see some other editor find a better one, but I consider I did not twist the text, simply summarised it, while offering the reader the reference in the notes and the full quote on Wikiquote.
  • The next step was to organise - not synthetise - the summarised allusions in meaningful sets. If not done, one could object of WP:WAX. The simple dichotomy, external appearance vs psychological traits is by no means interpretative. In any case; I have made reference to a qualified - referenced - secondary source, the paper on "relationship of brand identity and image", in partcular p.72.
  • The last step was to synthesise - yes - the paragraph with one qualification. I found it rather neutral to write: "this network of connotations suggests the brand's identity is deeply rooted in its bespoke tradition." I shall also confess I found it nice to conclude the page with a reference to the start.
• As a mark of respect for other points of view, I remove this last, seemingly controversial, sentence - but undo the rest of the removal, for the reasons explained above.

Kindly discuss further edits of this section here: I will be happy to contribute to other improvements. Thank you, Racconish (talk) 12:56, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I removed this because the synthesis went too far. First of all, any brand that has existed for a long time will be mentioned in literature. I don't think this justifies discussing this use in the article unless these allusions are the subject of secondary source discussion. In any event, much of the synthesis I think crosses the line to original research. I've made a couple more changes in view of this - you can take them for what they're worth, and I still think the section as a whole should go. First of all, how do we know the brand is "often" used? If Charvet is so commonly referenced, surely another source has noticed this and could be cited for that proposition. Second, how do you know these uses are "typical"? That's pretty much 100% OR. Really all you can justifiably say based on a list of times it has appeared in fiction is, "Authors have at least once used Charvet to indicate..." Another aspect of OR here is that you are saying that the use of a reference to Charvet is to reinforce other aspects of the characterization. It could just as easily be unrelated to other aspects of the character, or could somehow undercut them. (How do you know that the Charvet is being used to reinforce the notion of nobility in that passage? Again, OR.) Finally, the last sentence cites a work that doesn't mention Charvet at all, at least based on a search in Acrobat reader. Calliopejen1 (talk) 14:23, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I do not agree with you, or maybe did not understand you on Waugh's example, but this is minor. I have tried to take advantage of your comments and feel it has ked to an improvement. Hope others feel the same. Thanks, Racconish (talk) 19:02, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Too many quotations

The use of references is great, but around half of the article is in the form of direct quotations. This causes a couple of problems: firstly, it sounds like a Charvet advert, with text from interviews and books copied with no interpretation, forcing the reader to extract the information and evaluate it; secondly, this makes the article very verbose, i.e. the same amount of information could be conveyed in half the words if the supporting quotations were shifted into the footnotes along with the source of each. This seems like the best article so far on any good clothes manufacturer, and it is great to have such a solid base of sourced material to work from, so thank you, Racconish. —Kan8eDie (talk) 15:52, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, this is the next step and I'll start working on it. Thanks for the suggestion. Racconish (talk) 18:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Images and footnotes

Kan8eDie, some reflexions on your comment that "it is recommended not to dictate picture resolution except in unusual case (such as overcoat). Also, footnotes should be self-contained".

Concerning images, forced sizing has been discussed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Image_use_policy#Forced_Sizing and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_101#Watering_down_of_non-use_of__pixel_sizes. Reading it, I feel it was appropriate to reduce the size of some images, in order to avoid sandwiching text between two images. The later seems to be an obvious and unchallenged layout rule (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS:IMAGES#Images). If, by reducing a little bit an image - within the limits of legibility - we can improve the layout of the page, particularly avoiding such "sandwiching", I think it is better to do it. Can you agree? In any case, you were right to alternate left and right. Thanks also for your kind comments on the choice of the pictures.

Concerning footnotes, I am not sure I understood your above quoted comment. Do you mean that notes should not include external references? Reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Footnotes#Footnoted_quotes, I take it that this is much more flexible matter. I have used the section "Notes" to put clarifications which did not need to be in the main text. I see nowhere a reason to avoid referencing a statement made in such a note. Did I miss your point? Now, it would be more elegant to avoid referencing twice the same source, in the main text and in a note, but I don't know how to do that. Can anyone help here?

In any case, thanks for the good idea of forking out Evander Berry Wall. I will take advantage of this to expand on the matter ;-) Racconish (talk) 09:43, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes; it is not really a hard-and-fast rule, and the situation is delicate here because we have such a high picture-to-text ratio. I suppose I could quote "The answer is, unless there is a justifiable reason to retain the fixed pixel size (such as those outlined in WP:MOS#Images), it is appropriate to remove it in accordance with WP:EIS. --AliceJMarkham" from the page you linked. I can see that you had actually down-sized the images a bit, so it was a sensible action. We can put the sizes back if you want, but it might be easier to add a bit more commentary to accompany them instead. For example, the advertisement is very nice, but not really used or mentioned. If you added it to illustrate a specific point, perhaps a note to that effect would help?

Sorry also for the terseness imposed by the edit summaries. I was refering to the change 'He generally wore a "very extraordinary costume"<ref>Such as a suit made of a large gray shepherd plaid check ...' to 'He generally wore a "very extraordinary costume"<ref>His extraordinary costume included a suit mad...'. I meant self-contained in the sense that it should make sense if you start reading at the beginning of the footnote. —Kan8eDie (talk) 12:48, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Now, I agree completely with you. Concerning the IHT ad, though it's quite charming, I am considering to take it out and replace it with the Sem plate, which is much more meaningful in the Charvet article than in the Wall article. For example, readers of Chaille's Book of ties will look here for an explanation of the image. But this calls for a development of the Wall article, replacement of the picture by some I have prepared and reworking of the Charvet article which I plan to do as soon as possible. When this will be done, I will relook at the layout and be happy to discuss/modify it with you if need be. Thanks for the prompt reply. Racconish (talk) 13:08, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help on the notes, Kan8eDie. It's much better now. I just need to take some aspirin and figure out how you did it ;-) Racconish (talk) 15:18, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts

This article is much improved since I looked at it last, congratulations and commendations to all who have worked on it! Have you considered nominating it for Good Article status? the skomorokh 19:14, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it is good, but it needs a bit more work on the interpretation of the quotations, and some sections, which have great data, might need a bit more copyediting first. —Kan8eDie (talk) 21:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me your last edit, Kan8eDie, took care of the copy editing. I had put back in the main part the notes related to the section on International Recognition only for graphic reason, in order to balance the text and the images, but I agree this level of detail is better located in footnotes. For this reason, I shall move the Boldini image to the sub page on the list of customers. I am not sure I understand your concern on the interpretation of the quotations: is it something you consider to have addressed or that remains to be done? In the later case, could you clarify what you see as a problem? From my view point, the priority now is to find useful illustrations for the parts of the article which are not illustrated and I will focus on this. Anybody has other thoughts? Racconish (talk) 15:38, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I recommend merging the text into fuller paragraphs - one and two-line sections tend to have a disruptive effect on the article's flow. Stacking images (having images directly following one another) and squeezing text between two images also tends to make the article less enjoyable to read. the skomorokh 15:53, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is a problem. I merged paragraphs, removing about four, but this conflicts with having enough text to balance the figures. The article is still quite fluid (there have been huge changes over last fortnight) so fine-tuning like this need not be the biggest worry. —Kan8eDie (talk) 16:06, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Based on recent rfd on the customer's list, I have reorganized it. An editor made the following comment: "I think the list was perhaps better before--now it's looking somewhat like there is a fair amount of original synthesis going on. I might rather just sort it by rough chronology, and within that keep it in alphabetical order." What do others think? Racconish (talk) 19:07, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I will add my thoughts about this generally excellent article: First the images. The Charvet logo is too low of resolution (130 px). It should be, minimum 180px and preferably 200px to 350px, but no larger. The current size is too granular and small on modern monitors (30 inches+). Certainly, it can be replaced. I often shop at Charvet, so I have some of their larger plastic bags with crisp logos I could scan if someone does not have one already. - - The generic images of Charles De Gaulle and Edward VII, although marginally acceptable, do not enhance the article and should be omitted. - - Fair use of a copyrighted illustration or two by men's fashion illustrators from mid-century (many of which have been published in style books) on display in the store on Place Vendôme could be excellent additions. - - Frankly, there is too little mention of Christophe Charvet. I would expect more. - - And finally, although Charvet is certainly renown for its bespoke tailoring, there is almost nothing about the manufacturing and design of the superb textiles, shirting fabrics, and heavy jacquard silks, which I feel is the key to the firm's success. Perhaps mention of Alcindor Le Provost in the 1870s or others manufacturers is appropriate. Nearly all of the fabrics in use today are still manuafctured in France, no? Certainly this entire area of discussion is an oversight. - - M. Racconish, none of these comments are written to disparage the fine quality work that you have had the responsibility for here; these are only my observations. - - Bien amicalement, Charvex (talk) 10:29, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your contribution Charvex. Here are my thoughts on yours:

• Logo size, it is my understanding fair use of a logo implies lowest possible resolution. Right or wrong?
• Painting of Edward VII, it shows this decisively important customer wearing a Charvet shirt from the 19th century.
• De Gaulle: I had posted a picture of a French stamp showing De Gaulle in strikingly beautiful wing collar Charvet shirt. It went considered unfair. I fell back on the Common's picture, showing a collar frolm the 40's and highlighting the lyalty to the brand of this famous customer.
• Copyrighted illustrations: Do you have in mind Choiselat? It's kind of generic, hence probably not acceptable under fair use. ( Candidly, I was surprised by the request for removal of some images which I had assumed would be acceptable under fair use, hence became cautious.)
• Christophe Charvet: Could not source other 3rd party refs than those quoted and wish to avoid OR. Your finds would be welcome.
• Fabrics, manufacturers: Just added a clarification on finishing and fancy yarns for tie fabrics. I basically agree with you but wish to comply with the iron rule of OR. Do you know of any other quotable source?
• Le Provost: unknown to me. Could you shed some light?

Tout aussi amicalement, Racconish (talk) 13:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course, your comments are always well observed. - - Regarding copyrighted size, low resolution is a requirement. But, this does not mean « lowest possible resolution. » I have added many more images I care to admit to here - Wikipédia can be such an addiction ! - but have never had problems by zealous editors deleting them. One main thrust of the law is to keep copyright images small enough that they would never be used for commercial reproduction elsewhere. As the average pixel count on most computer monitors is about 133px per inch (U.S.), and that of commercial printers is minimum 1200px per inch, a 300px image would be only 0.25 inch printed - of no commercial value. More relevant to this discussion, yesterday I added a 363px copyright image to the Azzedine Alaia article captured directly from Amazon.fr; early last year, a 310px logo for the University of Franche-Comté; and another example, (in 2007) a 310px copyright image scanned from a book while I was in Bresse to the Franco-Provençal language article (I wrote most of this one - it is the historical language of our Charvet family, by the way!) all of which meet limitations by Wikipédia for what is acceptable; I have seen many much larger, but they are not mine. You will notice that the Infobox on the Alaïa article defaults the copyrighted image to about 220px. Most other Infoboxes (on fr.Wikipédia) default to 180px minimum to 260px. The « Other Information » comments added when the image is downloaded are critical, of course. (See my « Other Information » as a point of reference for both images cited)... The point of all this blather is, yes, copyright images must be small, but not so small as impair excellent screen legibility, and in practice, copyrighted images under 350px are not deleted by the Wiki-Police. Images at the top of articles of 180px to 220px displayed in Wikipédia enhance them, I believe.

As for your images Edward VII (I never heard of the person before, I must admit), and De Gaulle ("striking beautiful wing collar" - your eyes see something I do not), if you believe they are important, so be it.

Of course, my reference to fair use images was Choiselat. « Generic », you write? It is Charvet couture ! They are certainly far less generic than the photo of shirt collar on De Gaulle you admire. Chacun à son goût ! (smile)

My knowlege of manufacturers and Charvet is perhaps too intime and would be decried as OR. I assumed you might have citations for these matters set aside on your bookshelves, M. Le Provost, as well, since your knmowledge appears so comprehensive. I will be working at the BnF for a few of weeks in May, and could spare some time to get quotable quotes about Charvet there (but not in English).

Please forgive this long discourse. Tchao, Charvex (talk) 06:03, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Charvex,

• Charvet logo: based on your suggestion, I shall upload a higher resolution.
• Choiselat: I said generic because the drawings on display at Charvet are referring to fashion in general, but not Charvet in particular (cf. reproduction in Officiel Hommes).
• Alcindor Le Provost: never read of him. Who is he and what is his connection with Charvet?
• Bnf: if you have spare time, could you give a look to Montesquiou's letters on Charvet: Nouvelles acquisitions françaises (1958-1971), papiers de Robert de Montesquiou, département des manuscrits, around NAF 15054, f.116 (ref from Munhall)?

Cheers Racconish (talk) 17:12, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

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