Difficult Designer / Brand Pronunciation

[marcj]

How about Anna Sui? is it pronounces "sway" ?

[fireatwill]

no. sue-e. i'm pretty sure. ah. i don't know. it's how i say it and it's how i've heard it said.

[AlexN]

Yep. Sue-eee

[whizkit]

Sui should be pronounced in 1 syllable. SuI

[enak]

How about this, not a designer but involved in the industry

Inez van Lamsweerde/Vinoodh Matadin

Thanks!

[Yppe]

Originally Posted by marrimoda

Yppe -- I think in general that pronounciation is quite difficult to discuss without some audio demonstration...but oh well.

Maybe you also speak Catalan?

Yeah, Catalan is my mother tongue, I speak in Catalan with my parents and close friends, and school is half in Catalan, half in Spanish.

[LouiseyPeasey]

Quotes:
And I thought that Couregges was "coo-rehj-ay"

Courreges should have an accent grave which changes 'e' to 'air'...

Yes, correctly spelled, it's Courrèges, and the è sound is like the ai in air. The g is a soft zh, and the final es is not pronounced.

I don't think anybody's asked about Oscar de la Renta, but I heard someone on TV last night say "dee lah renta", which is a personal pet peeve. The de is closer to a duh than dee sound. I'm having a hard time thinking of an English word that contains the sound - it occurs before r in words like learn, urgent - but it's kind of hard to separate from the r. Anyone have a better example? You can bypass it a little by just not fully pronouncing the de, and sliding it into the la - d'la - but it should never, ever be dee.

</end lecture>

[AlexN]

Originally Posted by LouiseyPeasey

Ghesquiere - guess-key-AIR

I've heard "guess-key-AIR-ee" a bunch of times. But what you've posted makes more sense.

[PrinceOfCats]

Yep, there'd have to be an acute on the 'e' to make it Ghes-key-air-ee...

[zanney]

Hi,

I am new to forum and wanted to ask you gals what is the right pronounciation of 'balenciaga' ?

[esiders]

good question! I've been pronouncing it as "bah-len-chee-ah-gah". The designer Cristobal Balenciaga was from the Basque region of Spain...so I'm not sure of the correct pronounciation.

[shadow]

I am Spanish and you pronounce it as follows: bah-len-THIAH-gah. The TH should sound like in the word 'thing'.



And pleeeeease do not say Ver-sah-chi. It is ver-SAH-che.

De nada!

[purreow*]

The sales people at the NY boutique pronounce it: Bah-len-see-ah-ga

[eastendsnob]

Yes, I am pretty sure purreow's enunciation is correct.

Bah-len-see-ah-gah..

Rolls right off the tongue, don't it?

[softgrey]

ladies...
there is a thread on difficult to pronounce designer names in designers and collections...
i suggest you check there for any further questions...

and for anywhere outside of the basque region of spain...
the pronunciation is as eastendsnob suggests...
and this has been the accepted pronunciation of balenciaga for several decades now across the world...