4. Answer the following questions:

1. When did the London couturiers face the fashion’s problems?

2. What was in the early 1950s with British fashion?

3. When did Dior put on his first fashion show in London?

4. When did Balmain put on his first London show?

5. Why did the British audiences admire the glamour of Paris evening dresses?

6. Was Norman Hartnell allowed a great deal of creative freedom in 1961?

7. What did he produce?

8. How was the wedding dress that Victor Stiebel designed made?

9. What was in the late 1950s with British fashion?

Vocabulary to be memorized

aggressive – агрессивный, энергичный, настойчивый

archetypal – оригинальный, образцовый

audience – аудитория

cachet – отличительный знак

crinoline – кринолин

decline – приходить в упадок, ухудшаться

delicate – утонченный, изысканный, изящный

describe – описывать

elegance – элегантность, изящество

elegant – изящный, изысканный, элегантный

embroidery – вышивка

establishment – учреждение, правящая элита

freedom – свобода

gasp – открывать рот от изумления

inexorable – неумолимый, непреклонный, непоколебимый

license – разрешение, лицензия

linen – белье

moiré – муаровый

motif – основная тема, кружевное украшение (на платье)

narrow – узкий

opt - выбирать

powerful – сильный, могущественный, мощный, веский

profound – глубокий, основательный

purchase – покупка, приобретение

pure – чистый, безупречный (о вкусе), простой (о стиле)

retirement – отставка

revival – возрождение, оживление

shift – изменение, смена (белья)

survive – пережить, выдержать, перенести

tackle – пытаться удержать

watcher – знаток

watershed – водораздел

Text VIII Bohemian style

These clothes are comfortable take shape on the body and many are full length. As a result they are flattering for a variety of figure types and age groups. Natural fabrics predominate, and there is much empha­sis upon hand-worked surface decoration and a bold use of colour.

While ethnicity is omnipresent within fashion, it has enjoyed certain peaks in the last fifty years. Norman Hartnell's turquoise, silk-velvet, jeweled ‘Chinese jacket', featured in Vogue in November 1949, represents an early post-war example. Throughout the, 1950s, there were a limited number of fashion look inspired by the ethnic but then editors started to use exotic (to western eyes) locations for fashion shoots. From the mid- to the late 1960s, fashion designers fully embraced the silhouette, construction and textiles of a variety of non-western clothing traditions. This trend was international and found eloquent expression in Britain.

At the same time, British society was becoming increasingly multicultural. Fashion has been much enriched by designers who have imbued collections with references to their own non-British clothing traditions. Sophisticated technolog­ical developments and competitive pricing have brought speedy foreign travel within the reach of many. India, Turkey, China, Japan and North Africa are not only exciting places to visit, but have also become a series of vast bazaars to plunder for decoration and dress.

The London department store Liberty, founded in 1875, was among the first of many emporia to import and retail ethnic clothing in Britain. Museum collections and pub­lished works - in particular those by Max Tilke with detailed illustrations of ethnic clothing patterns have been potent sources of inspiration to fashion designers. Art school trained and textile orientated, Gina Fratini, Thea Porter, Bill Gibb and Zandra Rhodes were particularly successful in their ability to incorporate ethnic clothing tra­ditions within their own distinctive fashion idiom. Developing their shapes from non-western garment construction, they skillfully manipulated large expanses of fabric to create innovative fashion trends. This late 1960s shift to flowing, longer lines was a reaction to the reign of the angular mini.

Zandra Rhodes graduated from the textiles course at the Royal College of Art in 1966 and launched her own fashion label in 1969. She has consistently reflected the visual experiences of her travels and historical research in the textile patterns, embellishments and silhouettes of her garments. The V&A includes a screen-printed, silk chiffon, hood­ed, djellabah-style dress, from 1969. The printed design is called 'knitted cir­cle' and was inspired by examples of historical knitting in the V&A Textiles Collection.

While Zandra Rhodes used her sources to inspire her, Syrian-born Thea Porter patch-worked genuine ethnic textiles into her fashion garments. In the early 1960s she opened a London shop to sell antique Turkish and Arabian carpets. She started to design clothes in 1964, drawing upon her extensive travel experiences and historical knowledge. Her caftans, made in brilliantly coloured printed, woven and embroidered silks, attracted an affluent clientele with a hippie sensibility. Porter also designed ethereal chiffon garments and shawls, crewel-worked in gold thread, with sequined decoration.

From 1972 Bill Gibb regularly exploited ethnic cut and construction techniques in Collections. He often employed the Moroccan clothing tradition of using coloured braids to conceal seams decoratively. The asymmetry and drape of the Indian sari was another source of inspiration, which dominated his spring/summer 1976 collection.