Rajon Rondo and Nick Young break out as NBA fashion plates =?windows-1252?Q?=96_?=USATODAY.com

[Victor Steinbok]

The following was posted by USAToday about 24 hours ago.

http://goo.gl/YgRgb
Rajon Rondo and Nick Young break out as NBA fashion plates. By J.
Michael Falgoust. May 9, 2012
> Walt Frazier must be proud.
> A flamboyant dresser even today at 67 as an analyst for the New York
> Knicks games on MSG Network, "Clyde" is being given a run for his
> money by Boston Celtics guard Rajon Rondo and Los Angeles Clippers
> guard Nick Young.
> Frazier has a goatee and receding hairline now, but he still has the
> flair for the unfathomable when it comes to apparel and haberdashery.
> He can be seen in leprechaun green, multi-colored plaid or dressed
> head to toe in lavender.
> ...
> The jacket had horizontal black and white stripes and tan lapels.
> Rondo's collar wasn't quite of the lawnmower blade variety that
> Frazier wore during his Knicks heydey — along with an afro and
> sideburns — but his exceptional on-court vision clearly doesn't
> translate when it comes to looking into mirrors.
> ...
> Young looked like a character from the movie Boogie Nights. He wore
> shades, had gold necklaces visible along with the chest hair that
> popped out from a psychedelic shirt and diamonds in each ear the size
> of canned hams.
> Oh, and the shoes. There are actually no words for the gold spikes
> around the edges.

There appears to be a lack of coverage on this use of "fashion plate".

Wiki generally matches OED on this.

OED:

> fashion plate n. 'a pictorial design showing the prevailing style or
> new style of dress' (W.); also applied to other kinds of fashionable
> display.

Wikipedia:

> A fashion plate is an illustration (a plate) demonstrating the
> highlights of fashionable styles of clothing. Fashion plates are not
> depictions of specific people, but are instead generalized portraits,
> meant only to dictate the style of clothes that a tailor, dressmaker,
> or store could make or sell, or to show how different materials could
> be made up into clothes.
> Used figuratively, as is most often the case, the term is a reference
> to a person whose dress conforms to the latest fashions.

Note that the OED does not mention people at all, or any figurative
sense of the term.

OED does have fashion-forward (from 1948; draft additions June 2006)

> fashion-forward adj. designating clothing, a person, etc., at the
> cutting edge of fashion.

The description of Rondo and Young above, however, does not fit any
actual definition of "fashion plate", but is rather a mocking
"fashion-forward"-type slight.

AHD is more generous with its definitions:

> 1.    A person who consistently wears the latest fashions.
> 2.    An illustration of current styles in dress.

MWOLD is similar:

> 1*:* an illustration of a clothing style
> 2*:* a person who dresses in the latest fashions

Wiktionary is up to date as well. But, let's face it--Falgoust implied
that some NBA players are trying to bring back the ostentatious pimp
stereotype of the 70s blaxploitation movies. They make Shaft and
Superfly look stylish.

In this sense, WordNet 3.0 is far ahead of the field:

> The noun fashion plate has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
> 1. dandy, dude, fop, gallant, sheik, beau, swell, fashion plate,
> clotheshorse -- (a man who is much concerned with his dress and
> appearance)
> 2. fashion plate -- (a plate illustrating the latest fashion in dress)

Apparently, all that Rondo and Young lack is a feather (or perhaps
fishbowl platform shoes).

> Hyponyms of noun fashion_plate
> Sense 1
> coxcomb, cockscomb -- (a conceited dandy who is overly impressed by
> his own accomplishments)
> macaroni -- (a British dandy in the 18th century who affected
> Continental mannerisms; /``Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his cap
> and called it macaroni''/ )

As Johnny Carson would have put it, "I did not know that." JL take
notice (might be good for Double-Tongued too).

     VS-)

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