Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yellow Valentino dress of Cate Blanchett

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Consensus is that the sourcing is sufficient to demonstrate notability. Mark Arsten (talk) 14:56, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Yellow Valentino dress of Cate Blanchett

Yellow Valentino dress of Cate Blanchett (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This dress is not notable enough for a separate article, which will never grow beyond a stub. Can it not instead be included in the Cate Blanchett article, as a subsection or brief mention? Dusty|💬|You can help! 20:48, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

• Delete My grief, there's articles on individual dresses being made now? *headdesk* Blatant WP:NOT violation, although what criteria it would fit (probably multiple ones), I'm not sure. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 21:07, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

A lot of editors would feel the same about articles like BTC-T Alfa Romeo 147.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 10:55, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Keep Has adequate coverage in reliable sources 67 newspaper and magazine sources picked up in HighBeam, cited by all of the top fashion people Cosmopolitan, Vogue as one of the year's highlights in fashion. Cosmopolitan considers it one of the greatest Oscar dresses of all time, that's why it is notable above all I think. Fashion is grossly under covered on wikipedia and we should have way more articles on fashion collections and garments.

@Luke. Yes, Jimbo at the time of the Kate and William wedding when Wedding dress of Kate Middleton was up for deletion said if we have can 1000 stubs on geeky computer software related subjects then we should not only have one but one hundred articles on individual notable dresses as systematic bias towards male geeky topics is a huge problem on here, or something that effect. As a result a large batch of dresses were created like Black Versace dress of Elizabeth Hurley and many others.

This is where Jimmy Wales said that we should have 100 articles on notable individual dresses.

You can easily argue the reverse: It's insulting to women to say that women can be attracted to Wikipedia by having more articles about stereotypically female subjects. It was even brought up in the Kate Middleton dress AFD:

In later responses on the same and other threads, several female editors made it quite clear without referencing my post directly that they resented the insinuation that they in particular, or women in general, would flock to editing Wikipedia in droves if we just let them write more articles about make-up tips and such.

A Linux distribution, if it's discussed at all, is as likely to be discussed tomorrow as it is today. A dress, not so much, except under very rare circumstances such as actually impacting fashion for a considerable time period (which is subject to WP:CRYSTAL). Having an article for a dress is like having an article for an individual episode of a TV show, and Wikipedia normally doesn't take those, even if they're on male geeky subjects. Yes, reliable sources have articles about dresses. Reliable sources also have articles about TV show episodes. The source only cares about them because it cares about the larger context (such as the Oscars for dresses or the entire TV show for episodes); they're not really notable on their own.

Or to give another example, do we want an article for "Romance between teen stars Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber"? That topic is disdained by male geeks at least as much as an article about someone's dress is, and like the dress, is stereotypically something that appeals to females. And it's high enough profile that I'm sure there are reliable sources that are not gossip magazines and which talk about it. Shall we have an article? Of course not. Ken Arromdee (talk) 05:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

It's kinda funny to me why a straight male geek would show much disdain for articles like Black Versace dress of Elizabeth Hurley, I mean look at it!!!.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 09:19, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of who said what, dresses are not a priori exempt from WP:GNG and this particular dress is not notable. Contrast this dress and the publicity it (briefly) received with the wedding dress of Grace Kelly which continues to be notable even years after the day it was worn. Dusty|💬|You can help! 01:02, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Its funny how you are pointing out those dresses at these AFDs. I wrote all of the articles on the iconic dresses. And I agree that most of the Oscar dresses are not iconic or on their level. I also agree that most of the Oscar dresses would be better covered in a paragraph in a Red carpet fashion in ... year article. But I think this dress does meet GNG and has enough coverage to constitute its own article.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 09:16, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• Delete. No lasting significance: it barely rates a few words in the long Voguepedia entry for Valentino. As Heidi Klum keeps saying (over and over), in fashion, "one day you're in, and the next day you're out." This one's out, Cosmo puffery aside. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:08, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fashion-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:44, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

• Weak keep As much as I like the theme of famous dresses, I'm not convinced this is one that should stay, but I don't think this ought to be deleted outright. All the leading designers fight to fit out their famous mannequins come Oscar time, and some of the dresses do make the mark. There's a fair amount of coverage here, but most seem to be trivial; some do share the spotlight with the wearer in the commentators' eyes, but I don't see any commentary making out this dress as 'iconic'. Perhaps now might be a time to create an umbrella article of "Oscar dresses" ;-).  Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:48, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment. As I noted in the sister Afd above, there are several Red carpet fashion in 20xx articles, though none yet for Red carpet fashion in 2005. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:09, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Comment I'm not sure how I ultimately come down on this one. While fashion generally is undercovered in Wikipedia, I'm not sure that lots of articles on individual Oscar dresses are the solution to that problem. (See Cathy Horyn's many rants about red-carpet "fashion".) I agree that there is a ton of coverage, but most is contemporaneous, so WP:NOTNEWS might be a problem here. On the other hand, eight years later, I still instantly recognized this dress and many or most American women could probably say the same. I think the best solution might be a broader article, as suggested by Clarityfiend, collecting various important awards ceremony dresses for the year. Perhaps dresses with lasting coverage could have their own articles (Versace safety-pin dress comes to mind), but ones that spark a flurry of coverage that dies down relatively quickly could be included in articles with a broader scope. Calliopejen1 (talk) 03:51, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I would guess that most people who pay attention to the romance between Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber would remember it in 8 years as well.Ken Arromdee (talk) 05:53, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• Delete. I already gave my reasons above. Ken Arromdee (talk) 05:51, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep A dress or other object of clothing can be a work of art as much as any work of art, and such objects are collected by major museums and are analyzed by scholars. Their interest is both artistic, and--like any other applied art form--sociological. I would say that any item of costume which enters the collection of a major general museum and is discussed in the literature is notable; I am less sure about those whose significance is only as elements of popular culture, unless they have bee extensively discussed, not necessarily b academics, but serious non-fan discussion. As our coverage of these is only beginning ,we should be careful in our selection. Having settled the general issue, the question is whether dresses whose main significance is being won by major stars tat the Oscars are sufficiently important in the absence of serious curatorial or cultural discussion. Most of the dresses in this group, including this one, do not seem to me to be of great intrinsic merit, except for the circumstances in which they are worn-at least I see no references to academic discussions and analyses that would say otherwise. But the circumstance is which the dress and the other Oscar dresses are work are cicumstances of the highest possible significance in US popular culture , and that is sufficient. DGG ( talk ) 08:09, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep for this specific dress, but with comments - I really need to get back to doing the articles I started doing on Red Carpet Fashion by year, which would absorb some of the other minimally notable dresses for which we have individual articles. This particular dress has demonstrable significance in itself, unlike Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crimson Alberta Ferretti dress of Uma Thurman. Mabalu (talk) 08:50, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. Interesting article on a topic deserving coverage.--Ipigott (talk) 09:25, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep The Yellow Valentino dress of Cate Blanchett has adequate coverage in reliable sources.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 09:26, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Comment - I'm highly offended by some of the sexism allegations aimed at me here (or aimed generally at Wikipedia users). These dresses get coverage briefly, and then after whatever show/festival is over, unless they're particularly "novel" (like, say, Lady GaGa's meat dress thing), they're forgotten about. Surely the lack of prolonged, serious coverage is a reason for deletion, just like it is for anything else? Most of the later stuff is just mentions of the dress in passing, or routine stuff. Also, most of the later coverage is in unreliable sources. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 11:18, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Nobody is accusing you or anybody of sexism. But I am accusing you of the typical natural male bias exhibited on here towards cars, trains and video games and way of thinking that briefly used highly modified cars are notable yet red carpet fashion isn't. The sources used in the article prove that this and Academy Award fashion as a subject is notable. Articles about beautiful women in exotic colourful dresses might not be your thing but the subject does meet requirements of coverage and wikipedia would be better off as a resource if this subject was fully expanded, but with articles on the dresses as a whole for each awards rather than individually. ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 11:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• Utter rubbish. I would actually consider the wedding dress of Kate Middleton to be notable, as THAT got a plethora of coverage in many reliable sources, outside of the fashion world, and probably still is doing, if I bothered to look. One dress used once at one awards ceremony, is not notable, as opposed to a dress used at a televised wedding ceremony, garnering coverage before and after that event. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 14:19, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

"One dress used once at one awards ceremony, is not notable" - Green Versace dress of Jennifer Lopez? Mabalu (talk) 14:23, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• In addition to this, Blofield, you deliberately looking at what I've created, then commenting on it, is absolutely irrelevant to this deletion discussion. Also, Mabalu, that dress you link to also suffers from almost all of its later sources being unreliable... That said, there's an exception to every rule, and it's fairly evident from that picture WHY this dress has continued to garner any interest. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 14:28, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

It was your outrage and head bang remark which prompted me. It is clearly relevant because you have a very biased way of looking at the encyclopedia. Do you think that anybody outside motor racing jargon knows what a DNF and DNS is? You expect others to understand the article when in reality it is written in a way that the average wikipedian would find difficult. If we can have an article on a car used for one racing season 12 years ago which obviously no longer continues to get press (as if that is an encyclopedia requirement anyway), then we can have this. The bottom line is that both sources have adequate coverage in encyclopedic sources and that is all that matters. But as for "continuing to get press", Highbeam search for the car turns up zilch, the yellow Valentino dress on the other hand picks up 54 sources. ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 17:06, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• Ever heard of exaggeration? Thought not. Your comments in this AfD have been absurdly inappropriate. I do not have a biased way of looking at the encyclopedia, this is rubbish and a borderline personal attack - in fact, if you actually got off your high horse and bothered to read my comments properly, you would see that I mentioned one dress that I believe to be notable. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 17:37, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

This article clearly meets the sourcing requirements which indicates notability. What harm exactly does this article do wikipedia? That's why I'm claiming your biased because you want to delete an article which has way more sources and coverage than something you think is notable.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 18:29, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• WP:NOHARM. And yet more inappropriate/irrelevant comments, well done you. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 18:41, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• Keep, per DGG, well known, well sourced, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:01, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep per reasons listed above. "Never grow beyond a stub"? Gracious, look again! ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 12:30, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Useful note: If, in the 2nd second sentence of each article, there were some variables defined: "Let x be in the unified set of yellow fabrics..." then in the next paragraph, introduce the related eigenvector:

If we multiply any fabric's square matrix $A$ with $n$ rows and $n$ columns by such a vector $v$, the result will be another vector $w=Av$, also with $n$ rows and one column. That is, the fabric can be tailored as:

${\begin{bmatrix}v_{1}\\v_{2}\\\vdots \\v_{n}\end{bmatrix}}\quad \quad$ is mapped to ${\begin{bmatrix}w_{1}\\w_{2}\\\vdots \\w_{n}\end{bmatrix}}\;=\;{\begin{bmatrix}A_{1,1}&A_{1,2}&\ldots &A_{1,n}\\A_{2,1}&A_{2,2}&\ldots &A_{2,n}\\\vdots &\vdots &\ddots &\vdots \\A_{n,1}&A_{n,2}&\ldots &A_{n,n}\\\end{bmatrix}}{\begin{bmatrix}v_{1}\\v_{2}\\\vdots \\v_{n}\end{bmatrix}}$

where, for each index $i$,

$w_{i}=A_{i1}v_{1}+A_{i2}v_{2}+\cdots +A_{in}v_{n}=\sum _{j=1}^{n}A_{ij}v_{j}$

In tailoring the garments, if $v$ is not all zeros, the vectors $v$ and $Av$ will not be parallel, and therefore, one sleeve of the dress was $v_{1}^{k+3}$ longer than the other sleeve. Attribution: Wikid77

☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 12:43, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Brilliant! Mabalu (talk) 13:55, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Useless drivel. Praemonitus (talk) 02:30, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment I still do not feel it's appropriate to have separate pages for every dress worn to a red carpet event that receives publicity and am inclined to support the idea of merging these articles where possible, perhaps into the designers' pages or into pages dedicated to specific Events. This would reduce the amount of short, independent articles while simultaneously making them easier to find for readers interested in the topic. However, I would also like to add that the article has been fleshed out considerably since my original nomination and I withdraw my "short and unlikely to grow" comment but not my vote to Delete. I would also like to take umbrage against the charge of sexism as I have personally voted to delete a number of so-called 'geeky' pages (the Nintendo Support Forum being my most recent example) although I tend to mostly vote to delete non-notable person pages as there are so many non-notable people running about (present company excluded of course). I am sure a number of other editors would also concur but they might also add that both computer games and cars are used by many people many times whereas these dresses are typically worn by one person and just once. So the comparison is completely invalid IMO. Sorry for the lack of puncuation here but I guess that dress has left me breathless... Dusty|💬|You can help! 16:41, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• I wouldn't object to a merger; standalone articles are overkill. In my case, I've nominated, or voted for, the deletion of plenty of the aforementioned Linux distros, as well, so... Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 20:17, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• Keep The content presented is backed by reliable sources and provides sufficient support such that the subject of this article meets WP:GNG. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:15, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep - I was fulling going into this thinking "Delete", but I was swayed by Dr. Blofield's arguments. Its certainly never an article I'd create/write/read, but it doesn't matter. There's a precendent that articles about dresses are appropriate, and there's the coverage to satisfy the WP:GNG. Separate of my lack of interest in the subject, it does appear worth keeping. Sergecross73 msg me 18:40, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep Nice dress and article, sourced. Ericoides (talk) 16:22, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep or Merge Worthwhile and reliably sourced article on a subject that I don't give two hoots about. Actually an important runway dress, if there is such a thing. If it is not being kept as a stand alone, then it should be part of the yearly red carpet parade. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:29, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep per DGG. It isn't our place to decide what is silly and what isn't, that is the job of the reliable sources. Our job it just to document it if they do. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 20:11, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep: Subject appears to pass WP:GNG, and is signifigant for being a work of article. I find Blofeld and DGG's arguments to be compelling. --LauraHale (talk) 23:10, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
• Comment The question is not "is this article reliably sourced" because it's obvious that it is. The question is "is this dress notable" which means more than reliably sourced. It also, for example, has to pass the one event test and that is my main concern with this article (and is why I wouldn't consider nominating dresses that have had an obvious lasting impact). Granted, the one event policy as written applies to people not dresses but (part of the problem IMO) there are no guidelines for determining which dresses are notable and which are not. I think it's fair to apply the one event test to these dresses. I am not a fashion guru (even though I'm smoking hot) but my assumption is that editors here will evaluate this dress against that and other relevant criteria and come to a consensus. Thank you, Dusty|💬|You can help! 21:13, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Notability and weight of coverage in reliable sources generally go hand in hand.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 22:45, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. More than one person would consider a fine dress to be a work of art. Even Jimbo. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 22:50, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Almost every single citation is written from the perspective of the person wearing it, and briefly mentions the dress. There's hardly any proper description or detailed analysis of it. Most of the articles cited rely on the image and don't even say any more than the designer's name or very possibly the fabric. Such superficial coverage we know as 'trivial', and none of that supports the assertion of notability of the given dress, IMHO. My support for the article would be much stronger if there were more columns (and more column inches) dedicated to the merits or otherwise of the dress itself, rather than simply how the mannequin herself looks in it. In other words, whether the mannequin has chosen the right dress for her ought to be largely irrelevant. But that is not the case. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:03, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

There are some detailed articles on it which we can only pick up snippets of. The People magazine article and one or two others have full blown articles on it. Most of the articles are from newspaper fashion critics writing about the Oscars and a lot of them only write a paragraph or so or even a few words on the dress to fairly cover the other dresses worn, yes. And some articles do offer Armani's and Blanchett's comments on the dress. But the sheer number of sources which make a thing of mentioning and talking about this dress makes it notable. Enzo Petito has no article covering him in detail, mostly snippets compiled. A lot of articles are constructed this way, they still meet notability requirements. It would be unreasonable to expect whole books, magazines and big articles dedicated solely to one dress. Your argument is way stronger for the grey dress and I agree with Mabalu on this, the info in that could be merged into the 2007 red carpet articles easily, but this particular dress I think meets notability requirements in its own right.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 12:05, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

• Keep - Per adequate coverage in RS. A dress should be not inherently more or less notable. Smallman12q (talk) 12:47, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep - As long our coverage of Linux distributions is being held hostage to this issue, what other choice do we have? Kauffner (talk) 04:14, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• I move that the discussion be closed as Keep 7&6=thirteen (☎) 20:42, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
• Support, and second - first time I've seen Jimbo make a sensible comment. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:03, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.