As we get older there are certain gifts standing out in our memories for a variety of reasons.
One gift I was given and treasured most was a doll named Patsy. She wasn’t originally mine but was my younger sister’s Christmas gift, but on holding Patsy I immediately fell in love with her and couldn’t bear to part with het. Luckily, my sister was quite happy to exchange dolls. From then on Patsy was my baby and I continued to love her dearly and would have died for her.
Another gift I offered my Mom has been shining in my mind. On a Saturday, I was on my way to the local cinema when I happened to glimpse(一瞥) at the window of the gift shop at the corner of our street. There were lovely gloves, pretty flowered handkerchiefs, and rose patterned teacups and saucers, all in pretty boxes. Seeing all these lovely gifts reminded me that it would soon be Mother’s Day and my mother’s birthday. Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, if I could give my mother something really special, something I’d bought myself? So I stepped inside the shop and admired a dressing table set, which was a green cut glass with ornamental tray(装饰托盘) and several matching pieces. I was sure my mother would love it.
The lady must have seen my disappointment when she told me the price. But she had a suggestion which immediately lifted my spirits. She pulled out a large notebook and wrote my name in it and the gift I wanted to buy, and in return I paid her a penny from my pocket money. It meant no sweets that day but I didn’t care. At the age of nine, I’d made my very first lay-by(分期付款)…and felt like a grown up. From then on, every Saturday I dropped in at the shop on schedule and paid a penny, which the lady dutifully recorded in her notebook.
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The day before Mother’s Day I paid the last two pence.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Too excited to wait till Sunday, I excitedly presented the gift to my mother.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Is Fast Fashion Taking Over?
The fashion industry has changed significantly in recent years. Traditionally, fashion retailers(零售商) created two clothing collections per year, called seasons. Nowadays, in contrast, they can design and manufacture(生产) clothes in as little as four weeks. Fast Fashion means that the latest designs shown at the fashion shows in Paris, London, New York, and Milan can be coped and sold in shopping malls within a month.
The advantages of rapidly changing fashions are clear. Shortening the life cycle of a product means that if a design doesn’t sell well within a week, it is taken out of the stores and replaced with a new one. This is good for manufacturers, as it means a greater volume of sales. It is also good for customers, who can keep up with fast-moving trends cheaply and who can enjoy finding something new every time they visit the store.
However, there are also a number of disadvantages to the fast-fashion approach. Perhaps the biggest concern is the impact of wasted clothes on the environment. The low cost of most fast fashion enables shoppers to buy several new sets of clothes each season. This means that huge amounts of clothing are thrown away. Furthermore, with fashions changing so quickly, cotton growers need to produce more cotton more cheaply, and that means using more pesticides and chemicals. A third problem is the theft of ideas. Fashion houses invest a lot of time and money in new designs, only to see these ideas stolen and copied by fast-fashion companies.
In short, these days it seems that the fashion industry is changing almost as fast as the fashion it produces. What do you think of this?
