Posts about Balmain
How To Pronounce Balmain (and others)
Second part in my ‘how to say those tricky designer names’ guide. Even if no-one else did, our Tech Director found Part 1 very useful. Again all capitals eg ‘AA’ or ‘KEY’ take the stress of the word.
The key thing to remember when pronouncing Balmain is pretty much to ignore that ‘i’ – so the last syllable does not sound line ‘main’. Instead it sounds like an extended version of man. The first syllable is also extended a little. Try Bahl-mahhhhn. I have seen it simplified to Bal-men but for me that loses the subtlety of the French language. On that note I love Glamour’s tip on this one “Remember with French words, let yourself trail off at the end, so your mouth is in a round shape and you don’t quite get to the ‘n’ ”
Three names; a few subtle differences in how to say them – Jawn pawl goat-EE-ay to jon-pal-goat-T-A – but essentially they all give the same result. Just remember that Jean is not pronounced like you would pronounce it when talking about your J-Brands. Ready then? And VOGUE!!!!
As enigmatic as the man himself, Margiela’s surname appears to be a totally unique Belgian one. Pronounced mar-jeh-lah or mar-ge-la (with a soft g). Martin is pronounced with a longer a sound than we would use here in the UK – so maar-tin or if you want to stretch it maaar-tin.
Ok. First put any idea of ice cream out of your head – there is no ‘i’ in Veneta. This is a relatively easy one actually – a lot of syllables but they all pretty much sound how they read – Bo-tay-guh Ve-netta. The only slight differences I have seen is whether the first ‘e’ in Veneta is more of an ‘a’ sound and whether the last syllable of Bottega is gaa rather than guh.
(Fun fashion fact – did you know Bottega Veneta translates to “Venetian atelier”. Did you? Really?)
Another one that looks worse than it is. Again, mostly you just need to do a Catchphrase and “say what you see” (so showing my age here). So, all together now….Gee-am-ba-tease-ta Val-ee. And breath.
