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of yourself in any situation and in any land. Whether your costume is a
business or an evening dress depends on the fabric and bijouterie.
Choose a modest and neutral look showing no ambition, because kitsch
is loud, while true taste is silent.

***

Text 8
FASHIONS
(From Fifty Model Essays
1
by Joyce Miller )

Fashion is an entirely unnecessary and yet delightful detail of
human life. No one could contend that a person who did not follow the
fashion was lacking in any great mental or moral quality; yet to be in the
fashion has given joy in age after age, not only to women who are up-to-
date in their costume, but to the men who behold them
As a rule, men’s attitude towards women’s fashions is one of
amused tolerance. They pretend that they are unable to detect the nice
distinctions between the latest model from Paris and a dress that is
hopelessly out of date. But they are in reality just as eager to conform to
the popular idea of what is and what is not worn…
But men’s fashions change slowly, and men, unlike women, like
to be the last to leave an old fashion rather than the first to embrace a
new one. They have no desire either, that their womenfolk should be in
the very front rank of fashion. It would make them embarrassed to be
seen in public with a woman who was wearing something which caused
every eye to be turned upon her. But they like their wives to be dressed
as most other women are dressed…
Fashion is an arbitrary mistress to whom most women are slaves,
but though her mandates are often unreasonable and not seldom absurd,
she is followed willingly, for the reward she offers is that sense of
adventure and variety which is spice of life.

***

1
Друкується за виданням Потапова И.А., Кащеева М.А. Пособие по
переводу английского литературного текста. – Москва: Высшая Школа.
1975.

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