A question of taste. Fashion

Fashion is something we deal with every day. Even people, who say they don’t care what they wear, choose clothes every morning that say a lot about them and how they feel that day. What influences our choice of clothes is an interesting question. I believe that most of the people do not follow the fashion displayed on the catwalk. That kind of clothes is a product of famous high-class designers’ work, it is often very extravagant and extremely expensive. It is also not designed to be worn every day, but it is suitable for some special occasions.

However, we definitely borrow some ideas about fashion from music clips, videos, books and television. Movies also have a big impact on what people wear. For example it is known that more sunglasses were sold in America after the movie "Men In Black." Sometimes a trend becomes world-wide. Back in the 50's teenagers everywhere dressed like Elvis Presley. Musicians and other cultural icons as well as political and royal figures have always influenced what we are wearing. Newspapers and magazines reported on what Hillary Clinton was wearing when she was the 1st lady. The death of Princess Diana was a severe blow to the high fashion world, where her clothes were daily news.

Depending on their attitude towards clothes and fashion, people can be divided in three groups: fashion slaves, spending all their money on the latest clothes even if they don’t look good in them; fashion fans, who enjoy wearing modern clothes but not obsessed by them and people who just don’t care how they look. Personally I place myself between fashion fans and people who don’t care how they look. Although I enjoy shopping very much and like to try things on, especially when I look good in them, I don’t spend much time choosing and buying clothes. And of course I do it only when I really need something new to wear, and not in order to kill time.

My style and the range of clothes that I have are defined by the activities I engage in. Work occupies most of my time and therefore most of the clothes that I have corresponds with the dress code, registered in the policy of our company. According to the dress code, an employee is not allowed to wear certain items of clothing to work. For example, men are supposed to wear ties and business suits, and nobody is allowed to wear jeans, except on Fridays. Women’s clothes are not supposed to be skin-tight, too short and too open. All of the shirts are supposed to have collars. Clothes also can’t be too bright, the colors should correspond to the corporate colors – dark blue and white.

Leisure Society

Britain has in recent years been described as a "leisure society". This is because there is a greater variety of leisure pursuits and people have more spare time and money to spend on relaxation. Most spare time after work or at the weekends is spent at home. Older people may go to the pub or to the theatre, or visit friends. In recent years going out for a meal or bringing a take-away meal home have become popular with all ages.

In Britain people watch TV for many hours every week. Many cities have twenty or more channels, sometimes going for twenty-four hours a day. Many well-off people have a "trailer" which they can use for weekends away. Some have holiday houses in the country and spend as much time as possible on outside activities like fishing.

Young people generally go out on Friday or Saturday nights to a disco, to a concert or to the pub. In London one or two new nightclubs open every week. Sunday is traditionally a day off and town center can be very quiet or even deserted. People read the Sunday newspapers, go for a walk in the park or countryside or work at home in the garden. A lot of people wash their cars on Sundays or do jobs around the house. Naturally the leisure industry persuades people to spend a lot of money, especially on new and more expensive interests such as computer games and sports equipment.

Generation Gap

One of the important problems of all times is a generation gap. Adult’s mentality is different from teenager's. We are the children of two epochs with different views on various subjects. Because of this parents and children sometimes argue with each other.

Some people believe that teenagers today are generally rude, lazy and ill-behaved. Other people, however, think that teenagers are not so bad. Sometimes people don’t understand teenagers. They don’t understand some problems and things which are very important in teenagers’ life, for example the lifestyles, piercing, tattoos, relationship with friends and teachers.

Some people don’t want to understand modern views, ideals and our system of values. They say that teenagers are cruel, brutal, heartless and rude. Yes, today new generation «plays» with smoking, drugs and alcohol, but this doesn’t mean that all teens are really bad!
On the other hand, today many elderly people look at the world with new eyes. Moreover, they try to understand teenagers’ problems and solve them.

Most of the quarrels between parents and children happen because of children’s marks at school and generation gap. We try to learn better, but if we have a bad mark our parents can shout at us.

In most cases «new generation» doesn’t understand their parents and becomes depressed because of this. To protest against it, teens can shock people around them. That’s why it is considered that teens today are lazy and ill-behaved. Elderly people usually compare their childhood and youth with present, they are always talking about «the good old days». People are said to become wiser with age. Sometimes it is true and sometimes it is not. I think that you can meet a wise man among the old as often as among the young. It is wrong that when wisdom always comes in old age. Sometimes when we talk to adults, they listen only to threir own point of view. That’s why some teens don’t like to talk to adults. To sum it up, nowadays everyone has a different view on teen’s life. But, in fact, we should simply learn to understand each other.