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February 4

Kennedy Center Honors

See how the ribbon of the Kennedy Center Honors is splayed out with the golden bands on each side? Are those bands pinned to the honoree's clothing? What makes the ribbons splay out like that? Dismas|^(talk) 12:48, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see them splaying out, the two vertical sides hang parallel to each other and are connected with a V-shaped piece of ribbon at the bottom. The ugly gold-coloured bars appear to be covering (and probably stabilizing) the joins in the material Richard Avery (talk) 08:14, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What is the material anyway? Some sort of cloth? At first glance it looked like paper, making the whole awards look like cheap party decorations. No offense to Led Zeppelin or the Kennedy Center intended. JIP | Talk 12:43, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This does say joined/clipped together by three gold coloured bars [1] [2]. If you take a look at other examples, it's clear that the bands are probably not pinned [3] [4] [5], although it seems the ribbon does have a golden clasp behind it [6]. Anyway from those sources and more like [7] [8] or our article, the ribbons including gold coloured bars, whatever people may think of them seem to be an iconic part of the award. Note that whatever support the gold bars offer, if any, they also seem to have another purpose namely for info on the award. If you look at the above picture, the left bar says "Kennedy Center Honor", the right bar has the date, and the bottom bar has the name of the person or group being honoured. BTW, this hard a close up of the ribbon [9], it's clearly a cloth ribbon and not paper. Nil Einne (talk) 15:12, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like either the gold bars are very heavy - which could maybe produce that shape - or possibly they have some kind of clip at the back to clip them to the lapels. It might also be that the cloth in the two arms of the 'V' has been stiffened in some manner. SteveBaker (talk) 15:30, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe "splay" is the wrong word. They certainly have a bend to them at the upper two bars. They don't just dangle like Olympic medals such as those pictured on the right. Dismas|^(talk) 15:20, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]