The Tiffany Problem, or Tiffany Effect, refers to the issue where a historical or realistic fact seems anachronistic or unrealistic to modern audiences of historical fiction, despite being accurate. This often occurs with names, terms, or practices that, although historically accurate, feel out of place because of modern associations. [1]
Author Nicola Cornick first discussed the Tiffany Effect in 2018 after learning about the phenomenon and encountering the term. She explained that the name Tiffany derives from Theophania, a name for girls in medieval England and France. The old French form c. 1200 was Tifinie, and the spelling Tiffany first appears in English c. 1600. [2] However, if a historical fiction writer were to name an English character Tiffany in an Early Modern European setting as early as 1600, the audience would likely perceive it as inaccurate, associating the name with contemporary times or the 1980s in particular when the name reached peak popularity. [3] Fellow author Jo Walton coined the term Tiffany Problem in 2019 to refer to this phenomenon. [4]
Like the name Tiffany, the following names have been mistakenly thought to be of modern origin but are actually historical:
The first known vending machine, created in the 1st century A.D. by Hero of Alexandria, dispensed holy water. This invention predates the modern concept of vending machines by nearly 2,000 years, making it seem anachronistic in ancient history. [5]
Another example is the hoodie in the form of a woolen or cotton pullover with a hood; although most people likely believe it to be a late 20th century garment, its existence dates back to the 18th century. Some forms of it can be traced back to before the 7th century (hoods cloak).[ citation needed ]
European royalty would have worn silk until the 10th century at least. The Silk Road connected China with Europe as early as the first century BC, making silk garments and textiles a fixture of the elite for many hundreds of years. [6]
The oldest recognizably modern postal service (using riders and coaches) can be traced back to the first century in Rome (cursus publicus), and these systems existed at least until the 6th century with some breaks in the 3rd century, continuing in some parts of Europe, on and off, until the 18th century (Kaiserliche Reichspost).[ citation needed ]
Suspension of disbelief is the avoidance—often described as willing—of critical thinking and logic in understanding something that is unreal or impossible in reality, such as something in a work of speculative fiction, in order to believe it for the sake of enjoying its narrative. Historically, the concept originates in the Greco-Roman principles of theatre, wherein the audience ignores the unreality of fiction to experience catharsis from the actions and experiences of characters.
A tabard is a type of short coat that was commonly worn by men during the late Middle Ages and early modern period in Europe. Generally worn outdoors, the coat was either sleeveless or had short sleeves or shoulder pieces. In its more developed form it was open at the sides, and it could be worn with or without a belt. Though most were ordinary garments, often work clothes, tabards might be emblazoned on the front and back with a coat of arms (livery), and in this form they survive as the distinctive garment of officers of arms.
An anachronism is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type of anachronism is an object misplaced in time, but it may be a verbal expression, a technology, a philosophical idea, a musical style, a material, a plant or animal, a custom, or anything else associated with a particular period that is placed outside its proper temporal domain.
Blackwork, sometimes historically termed Spanish blackwork, is a form of embroidery generally worked in black thread, although other colours are also used on occasion, as in scarletwork, where the embroidery is worked in red thread. Most strongly associated with Tudor period England, blackwork typically, though not always, takes the form of a counted-thread embroidery, where the warp and weft yarns of a fabric are counted for the length of each stitch, producing uniform-length stitches and a precise pattern on an even-weave fabric. Blackwork may also take the form of free-stitch embroidery, where the yarns of a fabric are not counted while sewing.
Velvet is a type of woven fabric with a dense, even pile that gives it a distinctive soft feel. Historically, velvet was typically made from silk. Modern velvet can be made from silk, linen, cotton, wool, synthetic fibers, silk-cotton blends, or synthetic-natural fiber blends.
A brigandine is a form of body armour from the late Middle Ages and up to the early Modern Era. It is a garment typically made of heavy cloth, canvas, or leather, lined internally with small oblong steel plates riveted to the fabric, sometimes with a second layer of fabric on the inside.
A gown, from the Saxon word, gunna, is a usually loose outer garment from knee-to-full-length worn by people of both sexes in Europe from the Early Middle Ages to the 17th century, and continuing today in certain professions; later, the term gown was applied to any full-length woman's garment consisting of a bodice and an attached skirt. A long, loosely fitted gown called a Banyan was worn by men in the 18th century as an informal coat.
French hood is the English name for a type of elite woman's headgear that was popular in Western Europe in roughly the first half of the 16th century.
The study of the history of clothing and textiles traces the development, use, and availability of clothing and textiles over human history. Clothing and textiles reflect the materials and technologies available in different civilizations at different times. The variety and distribution of clothing and textiles within a society reveal social customs and culture.
Fashion in 15th-century Europe was characterized by a surge of experimentation and regional variety, from the voluminous robes called houppelandes with their sweeping floor-length sleeves to the revealing giornea of Renaissance Italy. Hats, hoods, and other headdresses assumed increasing importance, and were draped, jeweled, and feathered.
Fashion in fourteenth-century Europe was marked by the beginning of a period of experimentation with different forms of clothing. Costume historian James Laver suggests that the mid-14th century marks the emergence of recognizable "fashion" in clothing, in which Fernand Braudel concurs. The draped garments and straight seams of previous centuries were replaced by curved seams and the beginnings of tailoring, which allowed clothing to more closely fit the human form. Also, the use of lacing and buttons allowed a more snug fit to clothing.
Anglo-Saxon dress refers to the clothing and accessories worn by the Anglo-Saxons from the middle of the fifth century to the eleventh century. Archaeological finds in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries have provided the best source of information on Anglo-Saxon costume. It is possible to reconstruct Anglo-Saxon dress using archaeological evidence combined with Anglo-Saxon and European art, writing and literature of the period. Archaeological finds have both supported and contradicted the characteristic Anglo-Saxon costume as illustrated and described by these contemporary sources.
Shot silk is a fabric which is made up of silk woven from warp and weft yarns of two or more colours producing an iridescent appearance. A "shot" is a single throw of the bobbin that carries the weft thread through the warp, and shot silk colours can be described as "[warp colour] shot with [weft colour]." The weaving technique can also be applied to other fibres, such as cotton, linen, and synthetics.
The Medieval period in England is usually classified as the time between the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the Renaissance, roughly the years AD 410–1485. For various peoples living in England, the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Danes, Normans and Britons, clothing in the medieval era differed widely for men and women as well as for different classes in the social hierarchy. The general styles of Early medieval European dress were shared in England. In the later part of the period, men's clothing changed much more rapidly than women's styles. Clothes were very expensive, and both men and women were divided into social classes by regulating the colors and styles that various ranks were permitted to wear. In the early Middle Ages, clothing was typically simple and, particularly in the case of lower-class peoples, served only basic utilitarian functions such as modesty and protection from the elements. As time went on the advent of more advanced textile techniques and increased international relations, clothing gradually got more and more intricate and elegant, even with those under the wealthy classes, up into the renaissance.
Byzantine silk is silk woven in the Byzantine Empire (Byzantium) from about the fourth century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Dimensional stability pertains to a fabric's ability to maintain its initial size and shape even after undergoing wear and care, which is a desirable property. Textile manufacturing is based on the conversion of fiber into yarn, yarn into fabric, includes spinning, weaving, or knitting, etc. The fabric passes through many inevitable changes and mechanical forces during this journey. When the products are immersed in water, the water acts as a relaxing medium, and all stresses and strains are relaxed and the fabric tries to come back to its original state.
The textile industry in India, traditionally after agriculture, is the only industry in the country that has generated large-scale employment for both skilled and unskilled labour. The textile industry continues to be the second-largest employment generating sector in India. It offers direct employment to over 35 million people in the country. India is the world's second largest exporter of textiles and clothing, and in the fiscal year 2022, the exports stood at US$44.4 billion. According to the Ministry of Textiles, the share of textiles in total exports during April–July 2010 was 11.04%. During 2009–2010, the Indian textile industry was pegged at US$55 billion, 64% of which services domestic demand. In 2010, there were 2,500 textile weaving factories and 4,135 textile finishing factories in all of India. According to AT Kearney’s ‘Retail Apparel Index’, India was ranked as the fourth most promising market for apparel retailers in 2009.
The paradox of fiction, or the paradox of emotional response to fiction, is a philosophical dilemma that questions how people can experience strong emotions to fictional things. The primary question asked is the following: How are people moved by things which do not exist? The paradox draws upon a set of three premises that seem to be true prima facie but upon closer inspection produce a contradiction. Although the emotional experience of fictional things in general has been discussed in philosophy since Plato, the paradox was first suggested by Colin Radford and Michael Weston in their 1975 paper "How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?". Since Radford and Weston's original paper, they and others have continued the discussion by giving the problem slightly differing formulations and solutions.
A man's waistcoat with sleeves of 1747 is a rare example of eighteenth century clothing for which the garment itself, the original textile design, and a dated record of both the designer and the master weaver who made the fabric have also survived. The waistcoat is part of the collection of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, number C.I.66.14.2.
The Fermo chasuble of St. Thomas Becket is a garment belonging to Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170.