They wore "coats dark and sober except for bright horizontal slashes of ... color across the chest."
Robert Jordan does this a lot. (That's part of a sentence for Lord of Chaos.) He describes the clothes of characters and says that they have slashes of color (or specific colors) across the front or in the skirt or somewhere and I have no idea how to properly picture "slashes" in clothing.
Does it mean the coat, or whatever, is sliced through to show a color beneath? Is it thin strips of color sewn onto the coat? Is it like, say, those military stripe things (see all that gear on left side McCrystal's coat)?
What does it look like?
Please tell me. It's been bothering me for years and I've only now had the courage to admit my problem.
Help!
7 comments:
And now I'll have to wonder the same thing.
It goes across, from upper corner to lower: '/' as opposed to the backslash: '\'
Jazz -- I had the thought this morning that maybe it's like cords of color across the chest?
AE -- Oh, ha HA.
Wait ... I re-read it ... 'horizontal' ... Does he mean 'stripe'? Shit, now I'M pulled in...
Sometimes he just says that they're slashed with color, so they many not always be a "strip," but it still doesn't help with how things should be pictured.
I mean, is it part of the way the material was dyed? It seems unlikely, but I suppose it's possible.
It sounds like it's either stitched or printed. My money's on printed but there's only one way to know for sure ... Can we go to the source?
Well, the setting is basically at, say, 11th century Europe, if 11th century Europe had fireworks. I think that sort of eliminates printing, but maybe not.
The books don't talk about how clothes are made, thank goodness.
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