2,179 articles
Weaving in Goryeo
Weaving in Goryeo was the textile production of the Korean Goryeo dynasty, centered on hemp, ramie, and silk and organized through state artisan offices, temple workshops, and peasant households.
Wedding dress
Wedding dress: the garment a bride wears at her wedding ceremony. Also bridal gown. Defined by the white Western tradition since Queen Victoria's 1840 gown, cultural variants such as red Eastern bridal wear, US average cost of $2,100, and a $65.5 billion bridalwear market.
Wedding dress of Lady Diana Spencer
Wedding dress of Lady Diana Spencer: the ivory silk taffeta gown by David and Elizabeth Emanuel, worn 29 July 1981 at St Paul's Cathedral, with a record 25-foot train, Queen Mary's Carrickmacross lace, and over 10,000 sequins and pearls.
Wedgwood
Wedgwood (Josiah Wedgwood & Sons), English fine ceramics maker founded 1759 at Burslem by Josiah Wedgwood I; known for Queen's Ware, Black Basalt, and Jasperware; owned by Finland's Fiskars Group since 2015, producing at Barlaston and Indonesia.
Weighted-knuckle glove
Weighted-knuckle glove, also called sap glove or law enforcement glove: a leather glove with lead or steel shot sewn over the knuckles to add punch force; regulated or banned as a weapon in many jurisdictions.
Weimar culture
Weimar culture: the arts, media, and design of Germany's Weimar Republic, 1918-1933, centered on Berlin; known for the Bauhaus, New Objectivity, Brecht, and film, ended by Nazi cultural control in 1933.
Wellington boot
Wellington boot (welly, gumboot): waterproof pull-on boot named for the 1st Duke of Wellington, adapted from the Hessian boot by shoemaker George Hoby; first used 1816, made in rubber from 1856, mass-issued to WWI soldiers in 1916.
Wenwan walnuts (文玩核桃)
Wenwan walnuts (文玩核桃), also called play walnuts or hand-rolling walnuts, are Chinese collectible walnuts kept for their shells, handled as matched pairs rotated in one hand, and slowly darkened into a patina (baojiang) by years of handling; main production centers on Laishui, Hebei.
Western dress codes
Western dress codes are the graded formality system from white tie and black tie through informal business attire, semi-formal, business casual, and casual, defining garments for each level and governing invitations, workplaces, and diplomacy worldwide.
Western wear
Western wear: American dress style from ranch and vaquero work clothing, defined by yoked shirts, pearl snaps, cowboy boots, and hats; golden era 1930s-1970s, revived in 2026 fashion.
Wetsuit
Wetsuit: neoprene garment trapping a body-warmed water layer for cold-water insulation, invented by Hugh Bradner (1951, UC Berkeley), never patented; 3–7 mm thickness by temperature, loses about 21.5% insulation at 5 m depth.
Whakairo
Whakairo is the Māori art of carving in wood, bone, and stone, once done with stone tools and revived by a 20th-century renaissance of traditional carving.
Whale tail
Whale tail: the visible Y-shaped back of a thong or G-string above low-rise clothing; fashion slang from the late 1990s, peaking in the early 2000s with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, revived since 2019 by Hailey Bieber and others.
White dress of Marilyn Monroe
The white dress of Marilyn Monroe is William Travilla's pleated white crepe halter dress from The Seven Year Itch (1955), worn in the subway-grate scene filmed 15 September 1954; it sold for $4.6 million in 2011.
White tie
White tie (full evening dress, cravate blanche) is the most formal Western dress code: black tailcoat, white piqué waistcoat, wing collar, and white bow tie for men, floor-length gown for women. Emerged around 1840, declined after World War I, now reserved for state dinners, royal ceremonies, and rare galas.
Whitework embroidery
Whitework embroidery is embroidery worked in white thread on white fabric, where texture carries the design; named traditions include broderie anglaise, Ayrshire work, Mountmellick, Hardanger, and chikankari.
Wicker
Wicker (wickerwork) is the weaving of thin flexible sticks, stems, or reeds, traditionally immature willow, into baskets and furniture; the word, from Scandinavian vikker (willow), names the technique, not a material.
Wig
Wig: a head covering of human hair, synthetic fiber, or a blend, covering most or all of the scalp. Worn for cosmetic, medical, cultural, and religious reasons; also called cranial prosthesis for medical hair loss.
Wildberries
Wildberries (Вайлдберриз) is a Russian e-commerce marketplace founded in 2004 by Tatyana Bakalchuk, selling catalog clothing at first, now a marketplace with tens of millions of buyers, merged with Russ into RWB in 2024.
Wilhelmina Cooper
Wilhelmina Cooper (Gertrude Behmenburg, 1939-1980), Dutch-born model known as Wilhelmina, record Vogue cover model who co-founded Wilhelmina Models in New York in 1967 with husband Bruce Cooper.
Wilhelmina Models
Wilhelmina Models, founded 1967 in New York by model Wilhelmina Cooper and Bruce Cooper, is a fashion model and talent agency with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and London, run by publicly traded Wilhelmina International (WHLM), organized into Women, Men, Direct, Curve, Showroom, and Fitness boards.
Will Kirk
Will Kirk (born 1985) is a British furniture restorer specializing in woodwork, known for BBC's The Repair Shop since 2017 and The Travelling Auctioneers; distinct from actor Will Kirk and William Kirk.
Windbreaker
Windbreaker (British: windcheater): a lightweight, wind-resistant jacket, word dating to 1918-1924, popularized in the 1970s, descended from Inuit parkas; typically nylon with DWR, water-resistant but not waterproof, distinct from softshells and rain jackets.
Windsor chair
The Windsor chair is a wooden chair with a solid plank seat into which the legs and back spindles are socketed, originating in England in the early eighteenth century.
Windsor knot
Windsor knot, also called full or double Windsor: a wide, symmetrical triangular necktie knot for spread or cutaway collars, named for the Duke of Windsor, who never actually wore it, and the most length-hungry common tie knot.
Winnie Harlow
Winnie Harlow, born Chantelle Brown-Young (1994, Toronto), also known as Chantelle Winnie, is a Canadian model with vitiligo who rose via America's Next Top Model cycle 21, walked Victoria's Secret, founded Cay Skin, and is engaged to Kyle Kuzma.
Wish (company)
Wish, also known as Wish.com, was a San Francisco mobile shopping marketplace linking mostly Chinese merchants with consumers through personalized product feeds, sold to Qoo10 in 2024.
Women in costume design
Women in costume design covers the history, recognition, and pay of women designing costumes for film, television, and stage, a majority-female craft that won pay equity in 2024.
Women's Trade Union League
The Women's Trade Union League (NWTUL, 1903-1950), founded in Boston at the AFL convention, organized women wage workers, supported garment strikes, ran a leadership training school, published Life and Labor, and lobbied protective labor legislation.
Worry beads
Worry beads, Greek komboloi (κομπολόι), are secular bead loops used in Greece and Cyprus for relaxation, with odd 4n+1 bead counts, papas head bead, tassel, amber or faturan beads, descended from the komboskini prayer rope.