Fashionable Things

Pre-listening:

You will hear information on 4 fashionable things.

1.1.Before listening, pay attention to the following words and phrases:

• smoke-coloured lenses;

• Levi Strauss;

• Hindi;

• Coco (Gabriel) Chanel.

1.2.Make a guess what fashionable items you will hear about.

1.3.What do you know about Coco Chanel and Levi Strauss?

After-listening:

2.1.Find the odd fashionable item (according to the text):

a) sunglasses	d) shampoo
b) jeans	e) perfume
c) eye shadows	f) lenses

2.2. Mark the statements true (T) or false (F):

• The first dark glasses had nothing to do with the fashion and the sun.

• Glasses with smoke-coloured lenses were worn by cooks in China more than 600 ago.

• People couldn’t see the eyes of the dark glasses wearers.

• Levi Strauss designed perfume for miners and cowboys.

• Jeans were not fashionable at the beginning of the last century.

• The history of modern liquid shampoo is quite short.

• Coco Chanel was the leading shampoo manufacturer in the early 20^th century.

• Levi Strauss was completely bald.

• Chanel № 5 was introduced in the early 40^th of the twentieth century.

• Figure 5 was Coco’s lucky number.

2.3.Answer the questions:

• When and where did the first sunglasses appear?

• What were the first glasses aimed at?

• When does the history of blue jeans begin?

• Who designed the first jeans?

• What language does the word shampoo come from?

• When did John Breck become the world’s leading shampoo manufacturer?

• What was special about Breck’s appearance?

• What were the two reasons to give Chanel’s perfume the tag ‘№ 5’ ?

2.4.Do you like to wear sunglasses? Do you often change them? Are there any disadvantages of wearing sunglasses?

2.5.Did you ever wear a Levi Strauss? Are the jeans expensive?

2.6.Did you ever use Channel № 5? Would you like to?

2.7.Make-up your own list of the 4 fashionable things you can’t do without.

Tapescript 5

Successful Fashion Designer

Pre-listening:

You will hear a successful fashion designer talking about his career.

1.1.Before listening think of the possible subjects a designer should learn at college to be a success.

1.2.Before listening, pay attention to the following words and phrases:

• managing money;

• types of cloth;

• to be cost;

• a fashion house;

• to end up;

• to start a company.

1.3.Make a guess what the designer is going to speak about.

After-listening:

2.1. Mark the statements true (T) or false (F):

• Fashion was something the speaker always wanted to do.

• The designer’s parents fully supported their son’s future career.

• The designer did a two-year business course first.

• The designer liked the business course at once.

• Unlike other students of the art college the speaker knew much about business.

• The young designer had a part-time job in a local restaurant.

• At the age of 17 the designer had to stay home because London is a very expensive place for a student.

• The designer spent 9 months in a college in London.

• The first designer’s work was well-paid but stressful.

• The designer enjoys his stressful work in his own company.

2.2.Find the place where the designer did not work:

a) Milan	c) London
b) Paris	d) NY

2.3.Find the odd activity the designer had at his business college:

a) using a word processor;	c) talking about business;
b) managing money;	d) making on a sewing machine.

2.4.Answer the questions:

• Why did the speaker’s parents find it difficult to accept that fashion is a serious career?

• What clothes did the factory where the designer worked part-time make?

• What was the thing that gave the young designer the opportunity to study in London?

• What was the advantage in studying in London?

• What company had the designer been working for three months before he left college in London?

• Why was the job in NY terribly stressful?

• What does the designer do at present?

2.5.What qualities do you think a person should possess to become a designer?

2.6.What Italian/London and American fashion houses do you know? Which one do you think the designer might have worked for before he started his own company?

2.7.Speak about your favourite designer (in pairs).

Tapescript 6