prêt-à-porter

English

Etymology

First use appears c. 1957 in Punch. See cite below. Reborrowed from French prêt-à-porter (1951), itself a calque of English ready-to-wear.

Adjective

prêt-à-porter (not comparable)

1. Ready-to-wear.
   • 1957, Francis Cowley Burnand, Henry Mayhew, Mark Lemon, Owen Seaman, Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor (editors), Punch, volume 232, page 136:

     gloves, scarves, jewellery, and prêt-à-porter clothes; belts, beads, flowers, scent ... all the fleeting frivolities and lovely ephemera of the passing mode are strewn about as though by some demented diseuse gone berserk with her travelling trunk of properties.

Usage notes

• Synonymous with ready-to-wear, of which it is a reborrowing, but conveys a more upscale usage, due to the prestige of the French language.

Anagrams

• perpetrator

French

Etymology

1951, calque of English ready-to-wear.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pʁɛ.t‿a.pɔʁ.te/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

prêt-à-porter m (plural prêts-à-porter)

1. ready-to-wear clothing, off-the-rack clothing, off-the-peg clothing
   • 1951, Le Figaro, 28 Dec 1951, p.3, col. 6:

     Entre le prêt à porter et le sur-mesures classique un des plus grands tailleurs de Paris a lancé une formule inédite pour hommes.

     In between ready-to-wear clothing and traditional bespoke attire, one of the biggest tailors in Paris has launched a new option for men.

Descendants

• → English: prêt-à-porter
• → Japanese: プレタポルテ (puretaporute)

Indonesian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French prêt-à-porter (“ready-to-wear”).

Adjective

prêt-à-porter

1. (fashion) ready-to-wear

   Synonym: siap pakai

Further reading

• “prêt-à-porter” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.