I'm in the middle of planning a trip to San Francisco. San Francisco, unlike Portland, has at least one of those lovely United Colors of Beneton shops. They have nice stuff. Anyway, poking around the Beneton Group website, I noticed they sort their clothes into "Man" and "Woman" rather than "Men's" and "Women's" as might be more typical.

As I considered the oddity for a moment, I thought back to Paris. The three Zara shops I visited in the City of Lights also divided clothing into "Man," "Woman," and, in the case of Zara, "Child." And, as I gave it more thought, I realized a whole lot of fashion enterprises forgo the plural possessive for the singular: Armani and Versace to name two more.

But why do this? I figure the fashion people have one of two reasons. On the one hand, given the global reach of some of these companies — the Beneton Group has stores in nearly every one of the world's 195 or so countries, including four in Iran — it would be a logistical nightmare to localize "Men's" and "Women's" in every tongue from Hindu to Portuguese. On the other, English is very much en vogue in other parts of the world, so perhaps this is not so much a supply chain story as it is one of trends.