“En français, s’il vous plaît.” Paris is known as the fashion capital of the world, and so much of the industry’s lingo, even in other countries, remains in French. “Dernier cri” — meaning “the very latest fashion” — translates literally from French as “last cry.” It entered English in the late 19th century, around the same time many other French loanwords did. Peppering one’s speech with French vocabulary was seen as the height of sophistication at that time, in both England and the United States.