Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Armadillo shoe/archive1

Armadillo shoe

 * Nominator(s): &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 20:43, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

British designer Alexander McQueen was a wild child of fashion, a theatrical mastermind known for runway shows that doubled as performance art. Never was that more true than at his final show, Plato's Atlantis (2009), which featured a number of models walking in foot-tall armadillo shoes that made them look like alien ballerinas. The shoes were both lauded and loathed by the press and the public: many reviews called them grotesque and beautiful in the same sentence. Lady Gaga became famously associated with them after wearing them in a music video and on the red carpet. They remain a subject of fascination for academics and fashion journalists – and me – to this day. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 20:43, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Support by Lee Vilenski
I'll begin a review of this article very soon! My reviews tend to focus on prose and MOS issues, especially on the lede, but I will also comment on anything that could be improved. I'll post up some comments below over the next couple days, which you should either respond to, or ask me questions on issues you are unsure of. I'll be claiming points towards the wikicup once this review is over.


 * Lede
 * (Spring/Summer 2010) - could this not be in prose?  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I feel like this format is approximately the same as having the year after an album, which is pretty standard (see the lead of Lady Gaga, for example).


 * were ever made - do we need "ever"?  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I suppose not


 * Prose
 * Plato's Atlantis was McQueen's final fully-realized collection; he died by suicide in 2010. - seems like a jump!  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't see how it's a jump. A bit shocking, yes, but factual and contextually relevant.


 * I like the images used in this article.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, me too! The sketch especially was a godsend because I could not get my head around them before I saw it.


 * 21 pairs were crafted for the original collection, - it's usually bad form to start a sentence with a number.  Lee Vilenski  (talk • contribs) 12:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Fixed


 * sell for US $10,000-$15,000 - no need to link US$ per MOS:CURRENCY.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Fixed


 * Additional comments

Additionally, if you liked this review, or are looking for items to review, I have some at my nominations list.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 17:36, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Comments from ChrisTheDude

 * Spring/Summer 2010 - seasons aren't normally written with capital letters
 * Normally no, but in the fashion world "Spring/Summer" and "Fall/Winter" are used as proper nouns denoting seasons of fashion as opposed to natural seasons, the other two being Resort and Pre-Fall (see, , , for a couple of examples).
 * Fair enough -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:33, 6 June 2022 (UTC)


 * "suggesting that the models have evolved" => "had evolved"
 * Fixed


 * "final fully-realized collection" - McQueen was British, so shouldn't British spellings be used per WP:TIES.....?
 * Lol yep. I'm a bad Canadian.


 * "21 pairs were crafted" - any way to avoid starting a sentence with a digit? It looks wrong to me......
 * Fixed


 * "Lady Gaga, then his fiancé" - Gaga is female, so it should be spelt fiancée
 * Whoops


 * That's what I got! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:52, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I fixed a couple more UK spellings and am now happy to support -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:33, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks Chris! &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 08:25, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Aoba47

 * I have a clarification question about this sentence: McQueen admitted in an interview with trade journal Women's Wear Daily that he had never tested the armadillos personally. Would it be normal for McQueen to test out his designs personally (i.e. is this abnormal for him to not do this) or is this pretty standard for him?
 * This is something specific to these shoes, rather than something that would normally be expected for a designer to do. I put that quote in because it plays into the feminist critique that comes later in the article, that a man would expect women to wear these heavy, impossibly high shoes that have zero basis in reality, but not even test them out himself.
 * Thank you for the explanation. That makes sense to me. I have seen some interesting discussions about McQueen, where some call him anti-woman/misogynist and others that call him pro-woman/feminist (including Lady Gaga). Aoba47 (talk) 01:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)


 * This is not necessary for the FAC, but I would archive all the web citations to avoid any future headaches. Citation 29 (i.e. the Glamour citation on Kelis) was what lead me to post this comment. I believe a majority of the web citations are already archived so this may just be the odd one out.
 * Whoops yeah forgot. Done now.
 * It happens to the best of us. Thankfully, it was a live citation so it was not difficult to archive. I probably just noticed it because I forgot (or was just not aware) that Kelis owned a pair of these shoes. Aoba47 (talk) 01:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I have a clarification question about this sentence: In 2012, British Vogue called them one of the 20 most iconic shoes of all time. Is it British Vogue or British Vogue? The prose and citation have it both ways.
 * The magazine is just called Vogue, but informally calls itself British Vogue to distinguish itself from the original American Vogue. Our article is named on that basis, and doesn't italicize "British" in its title. Unfortunately, cite web doesn't let you do partial italics in the "website" parameter, so I'm forced to italicize the whole thing.
 * That is what I had figured, but I wanted to make sure anyway. That makes sense to me. You are consistent through the article with the British Vogue representation so that makes it clear to me (and to readers in general). Aoba47 (talk) 01:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Wonderful work with the article. My comments are rather nitpick-y so apologies for that. Once everything has been addressed, I will be more than happy to support this FAC for promotion. Aoba47 (talk) 15:56, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Aoba, thanks as always for your commentary, which is always thoughtful! I've responded to your comments, let me know if you feel anything remains unaddressed. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 19:52, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your responses! I support the article based on the prose. I greatly appreciate your contributions to Wikipedia and I had a lot of fun reading about this article. It was a huge blast of nostalgia for that period of Gaga's career lol. Best of luck with this FAC! Aoba47 (talk) 01:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * this is a bit late but I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the article. It was a lot of fun to write about and I was so pleased when I found enough sourcing to hit GA/FA. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 02:09, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Source review
Spotchecks not done
 * FN1: this appears to have been specifically in the magazine rather than BBC News generally
 * Weird. Okay, I've changed the link


 * Be consistent in whether publication locations are included for books and if so how these are formatted
 * I've added these. The only instance where I didn't was where Oxford University was the publisher, because Cite book says not to put a location where the publisher includes the location
 * The documentation says not to put a location where the work includes the location, not publisher. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:44, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, I totally misread that. Seems weird to me, but I've changed it.


 * Access dates aren't helpful for GBooks
 * Removed


 * What makes Daily Beast a high-quality reliable source? GeminiDragon?
 * At RSP, Daily Beast is shown in yellow for being biased/opinionated rather than for journalistic integrity issues. Per WP:BIASED, biased sources can be acceptable if there is editorial control, fact-checking, and independence. There is also more leeway given when it is the site's opinion being cited. In this case I believe the DB articles cited pass muster.
 * The "Best Shoes Ever" DB article has been cited by other sources including this book, Christie's, i-D by Vice, indicating that it is considered reliable by those publications
 * The author of that article has also written for WSJ, NYT, and several other publications, so I have no concerns about her journalistic qualifications.
 * For the most part, in this article the content cited to the Best Shoes DB article is supported by other sources, indicating that the facts are in line with what other sources are reporting (I would prefer to keep it even where other sources are used as it sometimes backs up similar but not identical facts)
 * In other cases it is citing opinions, such as in the last paragraph - I am happy to change to in-text attribution for those, if that would help.
 * The book from GeminiDragon was a republication of a Prentice Hall/Person Education book, but I wound up ditching it anyway as I had other sources that said the same.


 * Check that date formatting is consistent throughout - eg FN12
 * Should now be fixed


 * Metropolitan Museum or The Metropolitan Museum?
 * Made consistent


 * Check formatting of quote marks within quote marks
 * Can you specify where I have a quote within a quote? I don't see one.
 * Eg FN17. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:44, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. I've adjusted those to be singles now.


 * Are FNs 4 and 22 the same source?
 * Fixed


 * Be consistent in whether you include publishers for periodicals
 * I have done so consistent with the citation template guidance, which says the publisher should be omitted when it's substantially the same as the work.
 * For example FNs 36 and 41 are to the same publication, but one includes a publisher and the other does not - why? Nikkimaria (talk) 12:44, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * That was an oversight, I've fixed it. The rest should be MOS-compliant. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 06:05, 3 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Be consistent in whether museums are treated as publishers or works.
 * I assume this is in reference to the "Museum of Savage Beauty" from the V&A. "The Museum of Savage Beauty" is just the name of the website for the McQueen exhibition, and the website is published by the V&A. There is no actual separate museum entity by that name. In terms of the Met, I put Met as the website where I'm citing the Met's website (FN17 & 18), and Met as the publisher where it's the publisher of a book (FN20).
 * Why is V&A a publisher in those references, but a work in for example FN44? Nikkimaria (talk) 12:44, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Well...for whatever reason, that particular article isn't on the Museum of Savage Beauty site, even though it's McQueen-related. It's just on the main Victoria & Albert website. So I put V&A as the website. I'm not sure how else to handle the distinction.

Nikkimaria (talk) 03:31, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments,, I am sorry that it took me several days to respond. Let me know what you think. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 06:52, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * , I've responded to your comments, thank you. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 06:17, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, is this one getting there? Gog the Mild (talk) 14:07, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Good enough. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:34, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Image review - pass
Hawkeye7  (discuss)  03:17, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * File:Armadillo heels by Alexander McQueen.jpg - Fair use image - okay
 * File:Alexander McQueen last show dress V&A museum.jpg - Flickr image - CC=2.0 - verified - okay
 * File:Sketch for the armadillo boot.jpg - Fair use image - okay
 * File:The Monster Ball - Poker Face revamped2 cropped.jpg - Flickr image - CC 2.0 - no permission to verify, but checked by Commons admin - probably okay
 * Thanks ! &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 06:17, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 14:28, 10 July 2022 (UTC)