Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Irere (Alexander McQueen collection)/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 1 October 2023 [1].


Nominator(s): ♠PMC(talk) 07:13, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For Spring/Summer 2003, Alexander McQueen surprised the fashion world with a mature, romantic collection bursting with soft lace and tropical colors. Irere channeled film, Shakespeare, and Amazonian influences into a three-phase show of pirates, conquistadors, and tropical plumage, set against a film backdrop that reflected the show's narrative. It was a smash hit best remembered for the oyster dress, one of the most recognizable garments of the 21st century, and the skull scarf, which became a brand signature. ♠PMC(talk) 07:13, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Just want to note that I added nine archives to the references, feel free to adjust or remove if any of them don't work or aren't supposed to have archives! See invisible cmts to see my cmts divided by sections. GeraldWL 09:04, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from GeraldWL 05:26, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Found some duplicate links:
  • Paragraph 2, Concept: "pirates, menacing conquistadors"
  • Paragraph 3, Concept: "Elizabethan fashion elements"
  • Paragraph 1, Significant: "design by John Galliano", "sewn to a bias-cut"
  • Paragraph 2, Reception: "Hoyer of Sydney's Sunday Telegraph"
  • Paragraph 1, Other media: "appeared in Vogue"
  • Paragraph 1, Ownership: ""by Philip Treacy, jewellery by Shaun Leane"
  • Paragraph 2, Recurring: then-assistant Sarah Burton"
    • Handled, I think; I did leave Galliano's second link in there since it's directly relevant to the section and far enough away from the background that I think it's not worth making the reader scroll back up.

Found some duplicate refs:

  • Paragraph 3, Concept: ref 6
  • Paragraph 2, Show: there's [30][8], then [30][8][35]
  • Paragraph 2, Significant: refs 51, 62
  • Paragraph 1, Reception: there's [65][66], then [65]
  • Paragraph 3, Reception: ref 43
  • Paragraph 3, Ownership: ref 78
    • Yeah, these are generally deliberate. Some reviewers get shirty/confused by sentences without refs, even when they're supported by the ref that follows the next sentence. Also, I often reorganize things during the editing process and it's easier for me if each sentence has its refs rather me having to worry about which ref in the next 3 sentences goes with the one I just moved.

Now onto prose.

  • "eponymous fashion house"-- shouldn't eponymous be part of the link too? Ditto with Concept section
  • Done
  • "Its title is claimed to be an Indigenous Amazonian"-- in Concept section you added a link, but not here
  • Done
  • "the size of a basketball court"-- not sure what it's called, but I'm not sure using objects to compare size is effective. Standards of basketball court sizes vary by associations. If no sources mention the specific size perhaps say that it's "said to be the size of..."? Also perhaps this is overlink as well. Ditto for the Staging subsection.
  • It's the comparison given in the source, without defining a specific size (I don't think anyone got out to measure) so I'd prefer to stick with it as-is.
  • I'd say it's much better if it's "said to be", since the comparison with a basketball court itself is ambiguous. Just like how it's not ideal to say, "my arm is the size of two water bottles." GeraldWL 07:49, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sure, fair, changed
  • Done
  • "McQueen retrospective Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty"-- McQueen repetition here, maybe remove the first McQueen.
  • Yep, done
  • "his work featured a degree of craftsmanship that verged on haute couture"-- maybe add "the high-end" before "haute" just so it doesn't need clicking on the link to understand what haute couture is.
  • That would be redundant. Couture is definitionally the highest end of fashion.
  • Ah I didn't notice that!
  • Link runway shows since you also linked this in lead
    • Already linked in the first sentence
  • Link Givenchy
    • Oop, casualty of revisions, fixed
  • "a Spanish Jesuit tries to protect a Paraguayan indigenous tribe"-- more specifically, Guaraní people
    • Yes but a) iirc that's not in the sources I'm using and b) I don't think the detail is necessary to understand the concept (and I'd have to go and give the context of the Guarani being a Paraguayan indigenous tribe anyway)
  • "Amerindian" is a legit word meaning "American Indian" so I'm not sure you need to quote that. Maybe change to the synonymous Native American if you feel that's needed to warrant removing quotes.
    • Mm, I've left as-as and removed the quotes
  • "although Judith Watt claims"-- found a source for ya :)
  • Yeah but that says the word is Portuguese; her claim is that it's Amerindian, which isn't supported by that
  • I'm not sure it's super relevant, I don't really want to get into the weeds of whether it's a loan word to or from Portuguese or what
  • Maybe link politically correct
    • Done
  • "Author Judith Watt interpreted"-- we already knew who Watt is four paragraphs ago.
    • Yep
  • "it retailed for $15,000"-- should it be US$? For all we know so far these are British-made designs, so the $ is kinda ambiguous. But if you insist, this shouldn't be a problem too, I know people would just default their thinking to US.
    • It's USD, the source is WWD; I've clarified
  • Should heels and butterflies be linked? I think it's over.
    • Lost heels but kept butterflies
  • "A short film by John Maybury"-- is there a duration mentioned that'd be a better descriptor than short?
  • "as the "shipwreck dress" swims to a tropical shore after a shipwreck"-- why not link at the first mention of shipwreck?
    • Because it looks silly to link it in the name of the dress when I can just link it half a dozen words later
  • ""acting as co-director and art director""-- same case with the Amerindian thing. Co-director and art director is an official attribution in film credits. Maybe can change acting as to "assuming the roles of"
    • I don't actually have access to the credits to see what McQueen was officially credited as, so I'm going to leave that as a quote
      • I found this source, which states in the Irere column, "McQueen, as well as being a fashion designer, art-directed many photoshoots, he art-directed many films, and this film formed the backdrop to the collection Irere..." So I think it is safe to say it is an official credit; it also isn't an ambiguous credit like "camera guy" (could mean DoP or cameraman), which would make sense to quote. GeraldWL 07:49, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm not sure we can make that assumption here
  • Adding em or endash to the quotebox author part would make reading it much clearer
    • I don't see that it makes much difference
  • Per its own article, the "A" in "Ancient Greece" shouldn't be caps
    • Tweaked
  • Link NYT
    • Done
  • "the death of Isadora Duncan"-- maybe add "dancer" before "Isadora"
    • Done
  • "WWD said"-- you should provide an abbreviation parantheses in the first mention of WWD. Also later you wrote "The staff writer at Women's Wear Daily"-- whether the abbr or full is used must be consistent
    • Yep, casualty of reordering things
  • Link Technicolor
  • "confirm[ed] the gothic Cockney kid's unique point of view"-- should probably clarify what "gothic Cockney kid" means by either paraphrasing or links
    • Revised a bit
  • "of The New York Times"-- rm this link per my NYT cmt above
    • Swapped
  • Museum overlink
    • I think it's fine
  • "She described two examples in Irere. Shark teeth, used in Irere"-- change the second Irere to avoid repetition
    • Done
  • Since Other media para. 2 is just one statement in two sentences, maybe it'd be better if it's merged in the first para.
    • Yes, done
  • "The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met)"-- decaps second "the"
    • Done
  • Perhaps use the full title and link Savage Beauty in fn A since it hasn't been referred to in the body, thus far.
    • Is it not... right there? "in both stagings of the retrospective exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty"?
      • I was referring to footnote A, which is located two sentences away from "in both stagings".
        • Ah sorry, fixed
  • "of the retrospective exhibition"-- add 2011 before "retrospective"
    • No, because it was staged twice, 2011 and 2015, and I've referred to both
      • I see-- I only looked at the preview and thought it was a 2011 show, sorry!
  • "purchased from Los Angeles"-- LA's link but not NYC in paragraph 1?
    • Linked NYC
  • "to an Oscars"-- using the official name sounds better
    • Done
  • "Cultural history" and "wedding dress" overlink
    • I think both are pertinent
  • First exlink has archive but not second and third?
    • First is a deadlink that requires an archive, the other two are videos and afair IA doesn't archive YouTube/Vimeo clips
  • I don't think exlink needs accessdate
    • Removed


Gerald Waldo Luis sorry for the delay, and thank you for the review! All responded to/fixed, let me know your thoughts. ♠PMC(talk) 23:23, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No worries! I made a couple of replies which I signed so you can find it easier-- also just wanna note I didn't see the Technicolor cmt replied. GeraldWL 07:49, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Gerald Waldo Luis, sorry again for the delay in responding, I have not had the brain juice all week. I've responded to the last few and made the Technicolor tweak I missed the first time. Thanks much for doing the video links :) ♠PMC(talk) 14:42, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No worries about the delay; there is no delay after all :) I did a last read through the article and it seems all good for me now, so I'm supporting! A nice work about a nice work. GeraldWL 05:26, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks kindly for your review, cheers! ♠PMC(talk) 08:04, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Marking a header. I expect not to have too much to say, though -- at a glance it's in strong shape. Vaticidalprophet 07:39, 12 September 2023 (UTC) [reply]

Extended content
  • Although he worked in ready-to-wear – clothing produced for retail sale – Does this need to be offset by dashes? It's a definition, yes, but the definition can be given in a non-offset sentence while sounding a little less jarring.
    • I tried it in commas and in brackets and it feels awkward both ways. How would you suggest doing it?
  • For the images in "Concept and creative process", can we fit in an image of a jerkin (maybe swapping something else out?). It's not a familiar article of clothing to most readers.
    • Hmm. Swapped the bird out for a jerkin.
  • If I've ever seen the case for {{non-free no reduce}}, it's on "images of extremely detailed articles of clothing that turn into inscrutable blobs at 'resolution some guys thought sounded good when most people had 640x480 displays'". (This is true across a lot of the McQueen suite, but it really stands out here because the oyster dress is the lead image and the focus of a huge chunk of the article, and I cannot see any of the things the sources talk about.)
    • I dunno, I can see the ruffles fine, and that's really the part that matters. I know we disagree about NFCC to some extent, but I kind of think not being able to zoom right in and see the full detail here is the incentive for users to go to the original article I borrowed the image from and give them clicks
  • Judith Watt argued that McQueen's use of colours for Irere was distinct from what others were doing because it was part of a narrative that explored concepts that were significant to him personally -- unsold on the prose/structure of this sentence.
    • Honestly... yeah. It's kind of an annoying argument that she's making, almost a "not like other girls" thing. Like McQueen is somehow the only one using colors for Artistic reasons. It's hard to phrase in a non-pretentious way, but see what you think.
  • I'm sure you know...wrt "only two copies of the oyster dress are believed to exist", should 'believed as' be understood as meaning this is at all hedged or disputed? I recall the DYK ran with a more certain statement. "Known to exist" might be better if we don't want to give the impression anyone thinks there are more.
    • I am absolutely hedging here, and - ah. Part of it is to do with the article split. The oyster dress article mentions McQueen talking about 20 orders coming in for oyster dresses, but the Harper's ref says only two were ever produced, so I hedged the wording. It's not clear in any source what happened to those orders, although there are several possibilities. McQueen could have been inventing orders; the orders were real but got cancelled; multiple dresses were completed but then destroyed in accidents leaving only two (ie Harper's is mistaking "2 dresses still exist" for "2 dresses were ever made"); or there could be some number of privately-owned oyster dresses that Harper's just doesn't know about. It's hard to say.
      There's also the question of whether the McQueen Archive retains one. Per footnote a, "The catalogue produced for the original 2011 staging of Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty says that all garments were lent by the Alexander McQueen archive unless otherwise noted. The oyster dress is not so noted, although The Met has owned their copy since 2003." Other garments owned by the Met that appeared in SB were noted as such in the catalogue. In my mind, this indicates some ambiguity as to whether this is a simple error or an indication that the Archive has another oyster dress which they lent to the Met for SB for some reason.
      I've messaged McQueen_vault asking about whether the Archive owns an oyster dress, hopefully he knows and isn't too sick of me to answer. ♠PMC(talk) 16:09, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Left on read; speculation is the best I'm going to get. ♠PMC(talk) 22:41, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep in mind DUPLINK lets you link by section these days (so Gerald's comments might have been wrong, but I don't know exactly what he checked). This mostly stood out to me with regards to the possibility of duplinking the oyster dress in the last section.

That should be all, I think? Not much to say here. Vaticidalprophet 12:01, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

At long last, a response. Thanks for the patience while I got my shit together :) ♠PMC(talk) 16:09, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Looking back over, I'm willing to support here. My thoughts on "clothing produced for retail sale" is that it doesn't necessarily need to be offset at all -- it's a definition, but sort of an "explanatory" definition rather than one that needs to be excluded from the flow of text, if you get what I mean. But I don't see holdups here. Vaticidalprophet 01:56, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The usual nice piece of work. Just a few niggly bits here

Lead
  • Is there a reason "Indigenous" is capitalised? (ditto on the other uses throughout the article)
    • Yes, generally the same line of thinking as capitalizing Black when it refers to Black people. MOS:RACECAPS and WP:NCET get into the logic of it a bit more.
Concept
  • "It was inspired by imagery from the Age of Discovery: explorers, pirates, conquistadors, as well as imagery drawn from the Amazon rainforest: the culture and garb of the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon, and the colourful plumage of tropical birds like the macaws.": this is a bit of a monster, and I'm not convinced by the use of two colons in there – it could probably be reworked into two sentences.
    • I forgot how much I hate this sentence. Given your comment below about duplication, I've reworked those two paragraphs entirely.
  • The word 'irere': per MOS:WORDSASWORDS, I think I'm right in saying irere should be italicised
    • Normally yes, but it also says that where confusion may result, quotation marks can be used instead. Given the title of the collection is the word on its own and italicized already, I opted for quotation marks to differentiate. (I've swapped them for double quotes now instead of single though, as that was the result of something that's now been altered)
  • The first sentence of the second para ("The collection comprised three distinct concepts presented as a narrative sequence: shipwrecked pirates, menacing conquistadors, and tropical birds") is almost a copy of the second sentence of the first para.
  • See above
  • "One look reportedly used "26 colors and took almost five months to perfect";": is there any need for this to be in a quote? It seems to be an uncontroversial statement of fact that could be paraphrased
    • I'm always a little bit wary of taking McQueen at his word, because he was a bit of a bullshitter, but I suppose this isn't too over-the-top
  • "for a backdrop.[34][35][42][43]" There's a bit of WP:CITEKILL going on there – any chance of combining a couple of the refs to reduce the impact?
    • Wound up pitching Gleason, I think she was an artifact from a previous revision of the sentence. Is 3 okay?
Show
  • Any reason why "56 looks" but "twenty outfits" and "eighteen outfits"
    • Nope, fixed
  • "who famously died": strike "famously"
    • Done

Done to the start of Reception – more to follow. – SchroCat (talk) 15:57, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing...

Reception
  • "brightly-coloured" shouldn't be hyphenated, according to MOS:HYPHEN
    • De hyphened
Analysis
  • Lisa Skogh: who?
    • Contextualised
Ownership
  • "In 2020, Kardashian wore": you can just use "she" here
    • Done
  • As the skull-print scarf became a "brand signature", it may be worth thinking about including an image? I won't press the point and it's not going to affect my final decision
    • I wish I owned one to have a photo of (none on Commons either - I know the McQueen category backwards :P), and I don't think I could get away with NFCC for it since it's not really the focus of the article.

That's my lot – another very interesting piece. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 07:46, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sammi Brie

edit
Images
  • All of the images are CC, CC0 or PD except the oyster dress, which has a complete and acceptable NFUR.
  • All images have alt text.
  • No issues.
Text
  • In 2000, McQueen sold 51 per cent of his company to Italian fashion house Gucci, but retained creative control. WP:CINS on the second comma.
  • he enjoyed swimming and diving, and later in life owned a house by the sea. CinS here. Options include: he enjoyed swimming and diving and, later in life, owned a house by the sea. and he enjoyed swimming and diving, and later in life, he owned a house by the sea.
  • Galliano in 1984, and McQueen in 1992 Another unneeded comma
  • Wikilink Women's Wear Daily on first mention
  • As usual for McQueen, headwear for the show was provided by milliner Philip Treacy, and jewellery by Shaun Leane. Second comma is unneeded.
  • Critic Herbert Muschamp viewed the shipwreck dress during a museum exhibition, and wrote that its tattered state suggested that McQueen was making an analogy between urban life and rough weather. Remove comma (CinS)
  • Melissa Hoyer of Sydney's Sunday Telegraph felt that McQueen had "grown up and toned himself down" under Gucci, and felt that many designs "seemed actually wearable". Remove comma (CinS)
  • The staff writer at WWD called the phases "seemingly unrelated", but wondered if the shipwreck and survival theme was a metaphor for McQueen's rocky journey through the fashion industry. Again, remove comma (CinS)
  • , and with other clothing from Irere in both should be and, with other clothing from Irere, in both

Figured an image review was in order since nobody had done one yet. A source review is also still missing here. Sammi Brie (she/her • tc) 05:06, 27 September 2023 (UTC) (Consider: my FAC nomination of WWJ-TV)[reply]

These are all done, thanks for the review Sammi. ♠PMC(talk) 03:13, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source review (voorts)

edit

Reviewed this version. A few comments. Pinging PMC.

  • Refs 4, 5, 13, and 77: Wikilnk the publication titles.
    • Done
  • Ref 39: Add an archive URL.
    • Ran IABot and it didn't add one, I assume because it's an EBSCO link. I'm not qualified to try to fight with it.
  • Ref 74: Set "No pp" parameter to "y".
    • Done
  • Some article citations are in sentence case and some are in title case. Make them all consistent with one style per WP:CITEVAR.
    • Fixed
  • Ref 84: Remove the archive URL for JSTOR.
    • Done
  • Breward and Witek need OCLC links for consistency with the rest of the titles.
    • Done
  • Muschamp: The Google Books link is to a random page. Link to the main page for the book. Also add page numbers for the chapter.
    • It isn't a random page for me, it's the page the quote is from, which is fairly standard (especially when the source isn't being reused). Page number added though
  • Wilcox: Add a link to the Google Books page for consistency with the other references
    • This is not actually mandatory, and there's no gbooks preview for it, so there's no real point
  • Witek: The Google Books link links to a search for the term "shipwreck". Link to the main page for the book.
    • Same as the Muschamp comment.

Sources look reliable, no issues there.

Best, voorts (talk/contributions) 01:13, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source review (Aoba47)

edit
  • The citations are all reliable and high-quality. There are a good mixture of web, print, and scholarly sources. The article uses a consistent citation style. I have noticed something minor, but for the most part, the citations are structured correctly and accurately reflect the sources and support the information represented in the article (at least for those that I have done a spot check on). My comments are below:
  • Sources such as this one accessed via Gale (or Gale General OneFile to be more specific) should be clearly marked in the citations. Without that clarified in the citation, readers would have the impression that they would be taken directly to the website and not a database. The via= parameter could be used to clarify this for readers.
  • Although this is not required for a FAC or a FA (at least to the best of my understanding), I would still encourage you to archive web citations just to avoid any future headache with potential link rot or death.

I hope this source review is helpful. Apologies for posting a second one and I hope I do not cause any offense to the original source reviewer (who has done a wonderful job). I just wanted to point out a minor nitpick. Best of luck with this FAC and wonderful work as always. Aoba47 (talk) 00:37, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Aoba, I've added the via=Gale thing although I'm curious what's changed, as it hasn't come up when previous articles in this series have been at FA. I typically do archive once I'm done the article but one or two may have been added since or missed. Thanks for popping in, always nice to hear from you! Cheers :) ♠PMC(talk) 03:24, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What's changed is that citations now give a clearer understanding of what the readers will be accessing when clicking on the link. For instance, when I clicked Citation 67, I was expecting to go straight to the website for The New York Times and find the article there so I was surprised to find that the link lead to a different area. It's the same reason why I mark if a citation is linking to Newspapers.com or Google Books. In my opinion, it just forms a more complete citation for the readers to more fully understand what is being cited. Nice to hear from you as well. This passes my source review, but I would also pay attention to voorts's review of course. Have a great start to your weekend! Aoba47 (talk) 14:31, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No I realize what had changed with my edits, I was asking what had changed such that you were asking for this when you hadn't previously. I'm not disputing it I'm just curious. ♠PMC(talk) 22:33, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To be completely honest, I probably just did not notice it until now. Unless I am forgetting something, I do not think I have done a source review for one of your McQueen FACs and my reviews would have primarily focused on the prose and I would have not gone through the sources as closely as a source reviewer would. 12:33, 30 September 2023 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.