Further evidence that anything can be bespoke comes from Today’s New York Times, where David French has an op-ed column called “Welcome to Our New ‘Bespoke Realities.'” He argues that nowadays, “People don’t just have strange or quirky ideas on confined subjects. They have entire worldviews rooted in a comprehensive network of misunderstandings and false beliefs.” Those people, he says, live in a “bespoke reality.”
French attributes the phrase to Renée DiResta, technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, and who has written about “communities that operate with their own norms, media, trusted authorities and frameworks of facts.”
In her upcoming book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, DiResta writes that “Bespoke realities are made for — and by — the individual.” Americans experience a “choose-your-own-adventure epistemology: some news outlet somewhere has written the story you want to believe, some influencer is touting the diet you want to live by or demonizing the group you also hate.”
Makes you long for the days of bespoke shoes.
notoneoffbritishisms.com 
Bespoke isn’t used in this way in the UK, so I am struggling to see it as a Britishism.
Here are the first 16 of 2276 British “bespoke”s in the Corpus of Global Web-Based English (https://www.english-corpora.org/glowbe/) Maybe 10 percent or less are in reference to clothing.
1 GB G …peanplasticsnews.com to reposition and reorient the processing head has eliminated the need for complex and expensive bespoke solutions with long lead times. #
2 GB G ajb007.co.uk with cognac and red wine, when women become boring, when wearing a fine bespoke suit becomes a drag, when minidresses and miniskirts make me yawn… so,
3 GB G independent.co.uk warns. # Meanwhile, he predicts that more well-heeled customers will be bombarded with bespoke services, for which they’ll be charged a fat fee. In short,
4 GB G independent.co.uk in the marketing campaigns for their films. ” I think we will see more bespoke content created… this content will become an extension of the actual film, and
5 GB G dailydooh.com Aristarkh Chernyshev) has created interactive artworks using live data, sophisticated custom electronics and bespoke software. # The works have been created over the past seven years, and
6 GB G ncc.co.uk a recognised accreditation to the NCC Standard. Another feature is the identification of a bespoke Action Plan which helps the IT function prioritise continuous improvement. # ” Undergoing the
7 GB G bifa.org grant will allow container terminal redevelopment including new cranes, straddle carriers, a new bespoke IT system and surfacing work. In Bilbao the funding will be used for a
8 GB G moorlandshosting.net pages, a Content Management Sytem such as Joomla or WordPress, or even a bespoke system; we can host it on our Linux based servers. # You will
9 GB G rockmywedding.co.uk Joseph decided to tie the knot the dress designing started early. Sarah envisaged a bespoke creation just days before her engagement shoot, photographed by good friend and amazing photographer
10 GB G guardian.co.uk programmes since then for work and doing things the software couldn’t do for specific bespoke things. # People should be told how to code. To what level or
11 GB G independent.co.uk . The son of a hatter, Stetson noticed the Wild West was short of bespoke headwear. At that time, cowboys had a choice of floppy felt hats,
12 GB G wired.co.uk tickets to gigs and stream music or buy it from iTunes, all in a bespoke mobile app. Jessie J, Tinie Tempah and Lykke Li all use the service
13 GB G …ttyimagesgallery.com Our Gallery team of hospitality specialists have over 10 years of experience running unique and bespoke events and because of this we have an extensive network of suppliers from caterers to
14 GB G news.o2.co.uk other O2 services, like O2 Wifi and Priority Moments, to give you a bespoke, media-rich and locations-specific consumer experience, which is almost unique in today’s marketplace
15 GB G itpro.co.uk Android provides a range of free development elements that make it relatively simple to develop bespoke applications for corporate use, e.g. secure tools to interface with an enterprise’s systems
16 GB G astrium.eads.net satcoms and networks, high security and broadcast satellite communications equipment and systems, and bespoke geo-information services, worldwide. # Astrium is a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS,
Let me rephrase: bespoke isn’t used by ordinary people in the UK. I have managed to live here for 64 years without ever hearing it spoken once.
It would be used in marketing and by journalists that way, just not in ordinary language, where is is really still only for clothes, shoes, and perhaps the wardrobes in which they are kept.
Indeed. I understood the point of this blog to be noting British words and phrases coming into common usage in the USA; so I was just commenting that “bespoke” isn’t really in common usage in the UK to begin with. I think sometimes the academic approach of searching for written use of a word or phrase can lead one up the garden path.
Its use for clothing seems old fashioned. Most of the examples seem to be regarding software which i think heard first in the 1990s. We were using an Oracle system and I thought it was an Americanism. It would be interesting to find the first use of “bespoke software”.
“Bespoke software” has appeared 174 times in The Times (London), starting in a 1982 advert referring to “MINI AND MICRO TURNKEY SYSTEMS PACKAGED AND BESPOKE SOFTWARE.” There’s also a 1974 ad referring to “bespoke information systems.”
A “bespoke reality.” How clumsy. Does no-one use, “Cloud-cuckoo land.” in the states?
English East Midlands: For what it’s worth, I say ‘bespoke’ from time to time, though I’m more likely to say ‘tailor-made’.
I think we can say that the typical British upper class use has pretty much died out and that the technology-based use of the last thirty years is international.
I’m unhappy with the article for the simple reason that if you make something for yourself, it’s not bespoke. The author needs to go back and come up with a better analogy.