I. Warming up

Pre-reading activities:

• Work in pairs to see how we look at fashion through the following examples.

1. Lady Gaga；Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, stage name Lady Gaga, an American pop recording artist. Her single Poker Face won the Best Dance Recording in 2010. She has stated fashion is a source of inspiration for her songwriting and performance.

2. Brother Xili；Brother Xili (犀利哥)，the most stylish beggar found in Ningpo in 2010, but a native of Jiangxi; mix-and-match style with Hiroshi Fujiwara (藤原浩) and Gucci in one; Hair: the most in Japanese style; Clothes: second-hand vintage (古董衣); Belt: seemingly Gucci limited edition

3. Auntie Baiyun：Auntie Baiyun by Song Dandan in 2006 CCTV Spring Gala set pace for French APC Autumn/Winter 2008/2009 Collection in 2008.

• Work in pairs. Discuss your reactions to the clothes modelled in the photo on P34.

Think about: The style; The effect of the clothes on the watcher; The effect of the clothes on the wearer; The chances of their being a commercial success

II. Backgrounds

1. Theme

Fashion is generally divided into subsectors: menswear, women’s wear, sportswear, hosiery (socks, tights, stocking), formal wear and casual wear. Fashion and the choice of what clothes we buy and wear is influenced by our beliefs, attitudes and personality. But this passage shows that the stock market can also be an influence.

2. Style

III. Text Analysis

Text Organization

Discussion

1. What reasons can you think of to explain the correlation between hemlines and the stock market?

Well, it is possible that as the stock market rises, women have more money to spend on clothes and so they choose fashionable clothes, which happen to have higher hemlines. As the stock market falls, they have less money, so they wear more conservative clothes with lower hemlines. Another possibility is that the correlation could just be chance or coincidence for a few years, and if you look over a much longer period the correlation doesn’t exist.

2. Is fashion a form of art or an excuse for making money?

For the designers and manufacturers, fashion can make a lot of money, but as a market device they can call it art; for customers wearing fashionable clothes, it is much nicer to think of the expensive fashion as art, rather than simply as expensive clothes. Of course, fashion could be both art and a money-making machine.

Paraphrase:

1. Whenever the economic outlook is unsettled ...

The economic outlook is unsettled means the economy is unstable, that is, the economy has problems and is likely to change suddenly, making people uncertain about what may happen in the future.

2. It was given greater respectability when the great French designer, Courrèges, developed it into an item of high fashion.

For a while the miniskirt was controversial and not respectable because it showed a large extent of the wearer’s legs, but when Courrèges developed it in Paris fashion shows, this gave approval and support, because the miniskirt could be considered an item of high fashion (having high status from a Paris fashion house).

3 ... but the predominant colours became olive green and oatmeal.

Predominant colours refer to the most common colours or those which seem more important or powerful.

4. During the whole period, fashion styles have ranged widely, and have usually been sparked off by a desire to identify people as belonging to a particular sub-culture.

During the whole period, there has been a wide range of different fashion styles, which have been usually started by people’s wish to show their identity in a way that would make them distinct from the rest of society.

Summary:

No history of fashion in the years 1960 to 2010 can overlook or underestimate two constant factors: jeans and hemlines. Jeans evolved from the work clothes in the Californian ____________ in the mid-19th century to a symbol of youth, new ideas, rebellion and ____________ with its expansion to Europe and Asia in late 1950s. While jeans came to be popular on the worldwide scale, hemlines have a more peculiar significance (with only a few __________) as an ___________ of economy, i.e., as the stock market rises, so do hemlines, and when it falls, so do they.The 1960s witnessed the _________ by Mary Quant whereas the mid-1980s saw knee-length skirts – the economy was __________. Then in January 2000 the New York technology stock market collapsed. As usual, so did hemlines. But merely one year later, the stock market began to _________, and the micro miniskirt returned. Hemlines were higher than they had been for many years.

Keys: gold rush; individuality; indicator; exceptions; miniskirt; unstable; recover.

IV. Reinforcement:

Discussion

1. Can fashion express feelings and emotions, or make political statements?

Yes, fashion can express feelings, say, through colours and styles because women may feel different emotions when they wear different colours and styles. Perhaps fashion can make a political statement through association, but this depends on culture and convention: Green clothing may be a signal of environmental awareness, and some political groups use particular colours. More generally, fashion might express the mood of the times, like optimism or innovation, conservatism or caution.

2. Should fashion designers try to express the traditions of the culture they work in?

I think they should. Many people would want to identify some aspect of their cultural traditions with their clothes, so it makes sense if designers draw on such traditions, probably with innovations too. Of course, this depends on the individual designer – some may want to make a complete break from traditions.