Audrey Hepburn

Dream of your ideal wardrobe. Think ballet pumps, little dresses and narrow black trousers. Dream further of polo necks, simple raincoats, full skirts gathered at the waist… and suddenly you’re thinking of Audrey Hepburn. From the moment she burst onto the screen, her elf-like face and ballerina-thin figure became the envy of a new generation of women, fed up with the curvaceous blondes who went before her.

Audrey not only looked like a girl, she dressed like one. Her natural fashion sense and passion for clothes turned her into the last word in chic.

A

Designers nowadays, are plundering Hepburn’s movies for inspiration, reviving everything from black trousers worn with shiny loafers, to superbly tailored suits with boxy jackets and calf-length skirts. In the original 1954 film, Sabrina, Hepburn was dressed for the role (and for the rest of her life) by the French designer Hubert de Givenchy, who made the most of her size 8 figure with clinging black evening dresses. Audrey looked so breathtakingly beautiful that she became an A-list star.

B

In the film she played a princess who, fed up with the royal protocol, runs away with a commoner (Gregory Peck) to dance on canal boats and skip through the back streets of Rome in frilly skirts. The film was a godsend to Hollywood costume designer Edith Head, who won an Oscar for her efforts.

C

Head used flat shoes, gathered cotton skirts and plain blouse with the sleeves rolled up to try and make Audrey look dowdy. However, if Head was trying to make Audrey plain, she failed. After Roman Holiday women rushed out to buy full skirts, tailored blouses and wide belts.

By the time Head and Hepburn were ready to begin work on Sabrina, Hepburn realized she was a star and wanted a bigger say about what she wore. She decided that she wanted the 26 year-old Givenchy to work with her in the film.

D

The bare-shouldered evening dress he designed for Hepburn became one of the most famous dresses ever worn by Audrey, and was copied around the world.

Despite the success of Sabrina and the fact that Audrey became a life-long friend and follower, Givenchy did not work on a Audrey Hepburn film again until she starred in what is probably the best fashion film ever made, the 1957 musical Funny Face.

E

For this film Givenchy designed Audrey’s fashionable wardrobe while Head dressed her in the bookshop clothes. The wardrobe took months to design and make. Audrey loved to try things.

After the success of Funny Face the names Hepburn and Givenchy were cast in stone.

F

Hepburn’s fashion sense was effortless and elegant. It will remain forever timeless Although she died in 1993 at the age of 63 her style lives on.

Exercise 1

Look at the words in bold in the text and explain them, give the Ukrainian equivalents.

Exercise 2

Fill in the appropriate word(s) from the list bellow. Use the word(s) only once.

Elf-like, to make, flat, rolled-up, to burst onto, curvaceous, in chic, to become, say, life-long, tailored, full.

1 ……………..blondes 2 …………the most of 3 ……………..sleeves 4 …………..the screen 5 ……………….shoes 6 …………….. blouse

7 a bigger ……………… 8 the last word ………… 9 a(n) ……….friend 10 …………. an A-list star 11 a(n) ……………. face 12 a ……………….. skirt

Exercise 3

For each item of clothing listed, decide whether it is formal or casual and say on which occasion you would wear them.

Tuxedo, blue jeans, denim jacket, waistcoat, evening gown, shorts, T-shirt, leather mini-skirt, boxy jacket, cocktail dress, clogs, corduroy trousers, clinging silk dress, cardigan, loafers, jumper.

Eg. A tuxedo is a formal item of clothing and can be worn in a wedding.

Exercise 4

Fill in the correct word from the list below:

haute couture, styles, fabrics, catwalks, trends, collection, fashion shows, models

Once a year each fashion house presents its spring 1) …………… to an eager public. At 2) ………… in Paris and Milan, top 3) ………… parade down the 4) ………… and show off the latest 5) ……….. . These shows do not dictate what the world will wear, but they are influential in determining the season’s fashion 6) ………. . Clothing manufacturers see the shows and imitate the colours and the 7) ………of the garments that the models wear. Everyone wants to be stylish and the spring shows help people choose the clothes they will buy. Whether showing “prêt-`a-porter” or expensive

8) …………, the great fashion houses influence our tastes.

Exercise 5

Put each of the following words or phrases in its correct place in the passage.

Fashion in Clothes

slavishly	trends	slaves to fashion
individualists	trendy	fashion houses
conformists	dictate	the latest fashion
haute couture	dictates	personal ornaments

Most people like to think they are a) ________ and simply wear whatever they like. Few people will admit to being b) _________. However we are not just talking of the expensive c) ________ of the Paris and Milan d) _________, which not many people can afford anyway. We are talking of fashions and e) ________ in everyday clothes. We say that we wear jeans and sweaters because they are cheap and practical, but isn’t it true that our jeans and sweaters tend to be the same as everyone else wears? Doesn’t that mean that we like to be f) _______ ? Of course the big chain-stores, to some extent, g) ________ what we wear, but they always offer a choice and people do, on the whole, like to wear h) _________, which extends beyond clothes to make-up, i) ____________

(men wear earrings too, nowadays) and hair styles. It is easy to declare that we do not j) ________ follow the k) _________ of fashion, but aren’t we all l) _________ at heart?