Is it fierce? Or prune? Fashionistas find buzzwords

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It's not trendy, it's "on trend," and if clothes are really good, they're "fierce" or "dope." Don't like the lingo of fashion? Whatever.

Industry observers say the language of fashion is changing thanks to fashion blogs and reality television, where shows like "Project Runway" have popularized fashion terms. Now, competition is high to attain originality and avoid cliches.

On the sidelines of New York's fashion shows this week, fashionistas gushed their favorite jargon to capture their approval or distaste for the latest looks.

While time-honored classics like "fabulous" and the perennial "chic" are still in abundance, bloggers, young designers and reality TV personalities have been adding their own lingo to the mix.

"'Cool' to me is dated, whereas 'chic' is not," said Tim Gunn, "Project Runway's" fashion consultant, whose phrases -- including "make it work" -- have helped hone his fashion credentials.

"'Sophisticated' is a word that will always be with us," he predicted. "'Polished' is a word that will always be with us."

Gunn said "on trend" was more in vogue now than "trendy" and that he dislikes "modern" to describe a new look. He said the TV show helped make the fashion vernacular accessible to a larger audience who now have "a vocabulary to talk about fashion."

But some slang adjectives were likely flash-in-the-pans, he said, such as 'fierce' -- popularized by a previous winner of the show, Christian Siriano, after being used by former model and television host Tyra Banks.

"When it comes to the more popular culture aspects of it, people saying 'fierce' and whatever, I figure that comes and goes," he said.

AVOIDING CLICHE

At fashion week, popular words included well-worn favorites such as "hot," "lovely," and "amazing."

Designer Ashleigh Verrier said her favorite fashion word was "diaphanous" -- an adjective characterizing fineness of texture. "As in, 'That dress is so diaphanous!'" she said.

"I like 'Glamit'," said fashion designer Marc Bouwer, who uses the term for a fashion line. "It is so gorgeous and glamorous. You don't want to use cliched words."

Designer Thuy Diep said "prune" was popular within her fashion crew to express disapproval.

"We say 'What a prune' when we see a garment that is sewn poorly and looks like a shriveled-up prune because the fabric's all wrinkly and ripply," she said.