2,179 articles
Briefs
Briefs: close-fitting, legless underpants invented as Jockey shorts by Arthur Kneibler of Cooper's Inc., first sold 19 January 1935 in Chicago; ancestors of trunks and boxer briefs, distinguished by maximum support and no thigh coverage.
Brigandine
Brigandine: European torso armor of small metal plates riveted inside a fabric or leather cover, also called brigantine or corazzina; used from the mid-14th to early 17th century, derived from the coat of plates.
British country clothing
British country clothing: rural sportswear for shooting, stalking, and country pursuits built on tweed, waxed cotton, moleskin, and corduroy rather than synthetics; includes Barbour wax jackets, estate tweeds, flat caps, and wellington boots.
British Guiana 1c magenta
British Guiana 1c magenta: unique 1856 one-cent provisional stamp of British Guiana (Guyana), printed by Baum and Dallas; the sole surviving copy, initialled EDW, is the world's rarest and most valuable stamp, last sold for $8.3 million in 2021.
British Home Stores
British Home Stores (BHS), British department store chain founded 1928 in Brixton, sold clothing and homeware; bought by Philip Green in 2000 for £200m, sold for £1 in 2015, collapsed into administration April 2016 with a £571m pension deficit.
Brocade
Brocade (Italian broccato, 'embossed cloth') is a richly decorative fabric woven with supplementary, non-structural wefts, often silk with gold or silver thread; continuous or discontinuous, on draw or jacquard looms.
Brogue shoe
Brogue shoe: a leather shoe defined by broguing, decorative punched perforations and pinking, from Gaelic bróg. Originated in Ireland and Scotland as water-draining outdoor footwear; types include quarter, semi, full (wingtip), and longwing brogues.
Brooklyn Decker
Brooklyn Decker (Brooklyn Danielle Decker, born 1987) is an American model and actress, 2010 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model, star of Just Go With It, Battleship, and Netflix's Grace and Frankie, married to Andy Roddick.
Brothel creeper
Brothel creepers, also called creepers or beetle crushers, are suede shoes with thick crepe soles from WWII desert boots, adopted by Teddy Boys, revived by McLaren and Westwood's punk-era SEX shop, and still made by George Cox.
Brussels lace
Brussels lace (dentelle de Bruxelles) is lace made in and around Brussels, including bobbin lace known as point d'Angleterre and 19th-century needle lace point de gaze; hand production ended with World War I.
Bucchero
Bucchero is the shiny black-to-dark-grey pottery of the Etruscans, made from the 7th to 4th century BCE by oxygen-reduction firing, with fine (sottile), transitional, and heavy (pesante) phases, centered at Cerveteri and exported across the Mediterranean.
Buffalo nickel
Buffalo nickel (Indian Head nickel), US five-cent coin designed by James Earle Fraser, struck 1913–1938 in 75% copper/25% nickel; Type 1 and Type 2 reverses, key dates 1913-S Type 2, 1918/7-D, 1937-D three-legged.
Bulgari
Bulgari (BVLGARI), Italian luxury jewelry and watch house founded in Rome in 1884 by Greek silversmith Sotirio Bulgari; known for Serpenti, B.zero1, Octo; LVMH-owned since 2011.
Bunad
The bunad is a Norwegian national costume based on rural folk dress, largely designed in the 20th century and worn by about 70 percent of Norwegian women.
Burberry
Burberry is a British luxury fashion house founded by Thomas Burberry in Basingstoke in 1856, famous for gabardine (invented 1879), the trench coat, and the Burberry Check. Distinct from other brands via its Yorkshire-made heritage trenches, Equestrian Knight logo, and LSE-listed Burberry Group plc.
Burial
Burial: the deliberate interment of a body or cremated remains, studied through mortuary archaeology. Covers inhumation and cremation rites, grave goods, monuments, and aDNA and isotope methods from Mesolithic to medieval Europe.
Burkini
Burkini (also burqini): full-coverage modest swimsuit invented by Lebanese-Australian designer Aheda Zanetti in 2003–2004, trademarked by her brand Ahiida; portmanteau of burqa and bikini; subject of French, German, Spanish, and Austrian regulation.
Burlington Industries
Burlington Industries was an American textile manufacturer headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, founded by J. Spencer Love in 1923 and once described as the world's largest textile company.
Burmese lacquerware
Burmese lacquerware is the craft of coating bamboo or wooden vessels with lacquer from the Gluta usitata tree, centered on Bagan, Myanmar, since the eleventh century.
Burney Relief
Burney Relief, also called Queen of the Night, an Old Babylonian terracotta plaque (c. 1800–1750 BCE, 49.5 x 37 cm) in the British Museum showing a winged, talon-footed goddess with owls and lions; her identity, Ishtar, Ereshkigal, or Lilith, remains disputed.
Burqa (برقع)
Burqa (برقع, burka, burkha): Muslim women's covering garment. Afghan chadri covers the whole body with a mesh eye grille; Gulf and Emirati burqas are face masks leaving the eyes clear; subject of European face-covering bans.
Business casual
Business casual (office casual) is a neat, professional but relaxed workplace dress code, first recorded 1965–70, spread via Silicon Valley and Casual Friday in the late 1980s–1990s, now the most common office attire.
Bust/waist/hip measurements
Bust/waist/hip measurements are the three torso circumferences used to size women's clothing, defined in ISO 8559-1, central to ready-to-wear sizing since the 1920s half sizes, and affected by vanity sizing that makes a size 6 jean vary up to 6 inches across brands.
Bustle
Bustle: a pad, cushion, or wire or steel frame worn under the back of a woman's skirt, also called dress improver or tournure; defined the Victorian silhouette in two periods, about 1870–1875 and 1882–1889, peaking in size by 1886.
Buttock cleavage
Buttock cleavage, also called plumber's crack or builder's bum, is minor exposure of the buttocks and intergluteal cleft, typically from low-rise pants; defined by McQueen's 1993 bumster trouser and recurring fashion revivals.
Button
A button is a small disc-shaped fastener, made of firm or somewhat yielding material, that passes through a buttonhole or loop to fasten clothing shut.
Byzantine dress
Byzantine dress: clothing of the Eastern Roman Empire (4th-15th centuries), built on Roman tunics and cloaks with a regulated court code. Key items: loros, chlamys, stemma; sources include the Book of Ceremonies, Kletorologion, and Pseudo-Kodinos; Jennifer Ball argues a Byzantine fashion system existed.
Byzantine silk
Byzantine silk is the silk woven in the Byzantine Empire from late antiquity onward, a state-regulated industry of Constantinople used for imperial ceremony, diplomacy, and status.
C. Z. Guest
C. Z. Guest, born Lucy Douglas Cochrane in Boston in 1920, was an American fashion icon, one of Truman Capote's Swans, and a muse to Slim Aarons and Andy Warhol.
C&A
C&A is a European family-owned fashion retailer founded in 1841 by brothers Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer, whose initials form its name, with stores across Europe, Brazil, Mexico, and China.