5. Summarize your knowledge of the question under consideration. Speak on the different aspects of British fashion today. You may use the following plan:

1. The international couture industry in 1980s.

2. Exclusive fashion houses in London.

3. Diana, the Princess of Wales, a fashion icon in the world.

4. Young fashion talents in Britain during 1980s.

5. Today’s fashion designers in Britain and their ideas.

Vocabulary to be memorized

affection – привязанность, любовь

acclaim – приветствовать, провозглашать

advert – упоминать, обращаться

affection – привязанность, любовь

amateurism – дилетантство

announce – объявлять, заявлять

asymmetric – асимметричный

boom - бум

coverage – оболочка, обшивка, облицовка

creative – творческий

couture, coterie – от кутюр

consumption – потребление

choose – выбирать

charity – милосердие

crease – складка, сгиб

enjoy – наслаждаться

evening wear – вечерняя одежда

fairy- tale – сказочный

flair – чутьё, склонность, способность

fillip – щелчок, толчок, стимул, пустяк

fortune – судьба

found – основывать

glamour- чары, романтический ореол, обаяние

garment – предмет одежды, одежда

ink – blue – чернильно-синий (цвет)

jersey – джерси (ткань)

media – зд. средство, способ

monochrome – монохромный, одноцветный, однокрасочный

naive – наивный

neck – шея

output – продукция, продукт, выпуск

place – размещать, помещать

propose – предлагать, предполагать, намереваться

showmanship – искусство организации публичных зрелищ, умение произвести эффект, показать товар лицом

sleeve – рукав

tailor – портной, гл. шить

tailoring – портняжное дело, шитье одежды

unabashed – не растеряться

Text V British and English Traditions in Fashion

Today the traditions are not only being revisited by the British. American designer Ralph Lauren, who hails from Brooklyn, offered Savile-Row-style pinstripe suits worn over Jermyn-Street-style crisp shirts and ties in his autumn/winter 1996 collection. His twist: the strict, skinny suits, the collars and the ties were worn by women. Tailoring – whether for a man, bespoke and in gaudy bright tweed, from Savile Row’s most light-hearted player, Richard James; or for woman, factory manufactured and in a vanilla crepe by the young duo, Pearce Fionda – is central to British fashion identity in the late twentieth century. Nowadays tailoring could mean a trouser suit, it could mean a tweed skirt and a jacket, or it could mean a strange siren suit by Alexander McQueen that is missing one sleeve. The choices are legion.

In the 1940s, both hand-crafted and mass-produced tailoring were every bit as important to the British wardrobe as they remain today. But, despite the best efforts of fashion designers to be inventive without wasting precious yardage, choice was extremely limited. Utility tailoring involved a thrifty use of cloth: selvages used as hems, the position of every seam plotted with military precision. The V&A collection houses Utility prototypes from The Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, including a woman’s three-piece suit of slim wool skirt, neat herringbone jacket and matching blouse; and a man’s wool suit. The woman’s suit is a fine response to the government’s call for stylish Utility clothing. By utilizing the herringbone stripes vertically and horizontally, pattern is created and wastage minimized.

The man’s suit is a more humble piece, and helps to explain the desperation people felt for a change of clothes. But that could not happen until Utility was abolished, rationing lifted, and government-issue ‘Demob’ suits, which men wore to re-enter civilian life, could at last be relegated to second best. Every feature of this suit has been honed down; there is no waistcoat, no drape. It has an economically made breast pocket and the trousers have no turn-ups, for these were forbidden. The fabric, the interior pockets and waistband of cheapest cotton, all mark this out as Utility. By 1945 Utility clothes embodied a frustration and stagnation in the face of the desire to move on to new lives, in new clothes.

Fashion spring came not in London but in Paris, with Dior’s sensational New Look. Alisa Garland, editor of Vogue from 1960-64, ‘started in fashion in the year of the New Look’ and recalls, ‘I bought my version of the New Look from Dereta, for spring 1948, one year after its introduction in Paris. When I wore it in Regent Street never in my life have I caused more heads to turn. It aroused as much interest as the first mini-skirts.’ But in the main, the British fashion silhouette remained that of a tightly furled umbrella. When the effect of the abundant New Look did cross the Channel, it was more frequently in romantic eveningwear than in tailored daytime styles.

Not that the effect of Dior could be ignored. British designers drew on it to create clothes which gave the effect of shapely hips and fulsome skirts without all the fabric. A Lachasse suit is a clever riposte to Dior by a nation still under rationing. The front flaps were added on top to exaggerate the effect, and the skirt is cut in five panels, with the back panel formed into six knife pleats to give the effect of fullness. Pleats and peplums were the British solution to change: ‘Pleats in every form and for all clothes’ said Vogue in March 1948. British designer clothes were relying heavily on optical illusion rather than cloth.