“CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN”… OR WHAT TEENAGERS IN RUSSIA AND GREAT BRITAIN PREFER TO WEAR Research work

MUNICIPAL EDUCATIONAL – RESEARCH

CONFERENCE OF STUDENTS

“LOMONOSOVSKIE CHTENIA”

Direction - Lingvostranovedenie

                                      “CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN”…

OR WHAT TEENAGERS IN RUSSIA OAND GREAT BRITAIN PREFER TO WEAR

Research work



                                                                                        Made by the student of the 9 th Form

                                                                                       Silant’eva Anastasia Nikolaevna
                                                                                       Secondary school №75, Vychegodsky

                                                                                       Kotlas,   Archangelsk Region.

                                                                                       The supervisor is the English teacher

                                                                                         Naritsyna Valentina Leonidovna.

                                                                                          Secondary school №75, Vychegodsky

                                                                                            Kotlas, Archangelsk Region.                                                                                                            

                                                            KOTLAS, 201

CONTENTS

                                                                                                                                             Page    

 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………...3                                                                                                                                            

  Chapter1 Fashion: styles, trends and brands…………………………………….....................4                                                                        

        1.1 People’s attitude to a fashion in the UK and in Russia.................................................4                                          

   1.2 Clothing Style is one of the main elements of a person’s image……………………..5

3.  A trend is an important direction of the development of a fashion………………...7
4.  The most popular fashion brands of teenagers’ clothing……………………………8

Chapter2 Who dictates fashion for teenagers?...................................................................9
2.1. Youth subcultures……………………………………………………………………9
2.2 Factors influencing on  the choice of the teenagers in the fashion world……………9

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….....10                                                                                                                             Literature……………………………………………………………………………………...11                                                                                                                              

Appendix1 The main styles…………………………………………………………………...12

Appendix2 The most popular trends of teenagers’ fashion…………………………………..13

Appendix3 The image of contemporary teenagers……………………………………………14

Appendix4 Popular brands……………………………………………………………………15

Appendix5 The results of testing ………………………………………………………….....16                                    

 Appendix6   Factors, influenced on the teenagers’ choice in fashion……………..................17

INTRODUCTION

   The year 2014 is declared the UK/Russia Year of Culture. One of the main tasks is to promote cultural exchange. Fashion and style аre integral parts of the culture of any country.

     It was interesting for me to find out:

1. What styles and fashion trends are there for teenagers in the UK?

2. What brands are fashionable to wear in Russia and the UK now?

3. How much teenagers’ fashion in Russia is similar to it in Britain?

4. Who dictates fashion in the world?

The aim of the work: Exposing of the similarities and differences in the teenagers’ fashion in Russia and the UK.

Tasks for the study:

      1. To learn the main facts about a fashion and its development        

       2. To learn the peculiarities of the way of clothing of   teenagers in Great Britain

       3. To prepare a my classmates in order to find out their understanding and attitude to a fashion

       4. To conduct the comparative analysis for styles, directions and popular brands of teenage    fashion in Russia and the UK.
       5. To prepare a presentation to this work.  

 The subjects of investigation: directions of teenage fashion in Russia and the UK.

The object of investigation: Russian and the UK fashion and clothing.

Actuality: The Internet gives us the opportunity to know what teenagers prefer to wear.

So, it is very important to know more about English customs and traditions, about the fashion, or clothing style as a part of the culture of the UK.

Hypothesis: If teenagers are considered to have the possibility to be interested in the life and fashion of different countries through the Internet   there must be many similarities in their way of dressing. Russia’s and Britain’s young people have many similar features in the fashion.

Methods of investigation: statistical sampling method, comparative methods and the method of analysis

         The practical value: Getting the additional knowledge in the subject of English,                              expanding the vocabulary and finding out more about the styles and the    

        fashion of English teenagers

CHAPTER 1 FASHION: STYLES, TRENDS AND BRAND

1. People’s attitude to fashion in the UK and in Russia
    

    Fashion (FR. Mode, from the Latin. modus - measure, image, method, rule and injunction) is a temporary domination of a certain style in any sphere of life or culture. Nowadays, people pay much attention to fashion.

   Every fashion goes through three stages. At first it is different; it may be new and exciting, shocking or surprising. Then it becomes popular, and the original idea is imitated. Finally it becomes boring and out of date as a new fashion starts and being fashionable says something about you. It means that you are up to date in other ways.       Fashion is never permanent. Yet fashion is more than clothing. As long as people have the desire to be beautiful, there will be fashion 
    London is considered to be the birthplace of the world’s fashion. The streets and century-old traditions live in harmony with modern trends here. There is a place for conservatism and restrained classics and for the most unexpected ideas in London. Individualism is important for the British fashion. Some changes in clothes are practical and reflect the different way that they live. But fashion is about having fun and being up to date. Understated elegance, eccentricity, and romance are the characteristics of the English fashion. Love for traditions easily coexists here with punk spirit of freedom and a desire to experiment. Eccentricity has always been an aspect of the British character.

      In the UK the Central College of St Martin (Saint Martin's) is the most famous and respected school of fashion and design. This school has been completed by such masters of fashion, as John Galliano and Alexander McQueen    

The Russian designers are not so well - known in the whole world as the representatives of the Western fashion. The European Fashion Houses have always been of great influence on the formation of style and fashion in Russia. The Moscow Textile Institute is the most respected school of fashion and design in Russia. Its graduates are the recognized stars of  the world podiums: Vyacheslav Zaitsev and Victoria Andriyanova Numerous works of Russian designers are famous for their elegance and grace. The Russian Fashion Week is the biggest fashion Week in Eastern Europe. Russian people tend to choose good clothing according to their individual style. Russian women wear high-heeled shoes daily, they consider them to be comfortable and feel real ladies in them. 
To sum it up: Both Russia and Britain can be proud of the designers of fashionable   clothes. For most British people fashion is not very important. Foreigners say that most Russian people really look fashionable.

  1.2 Clothing Style is one of the main elements of a person’s image 
    There are many clothing styles in the UK. Some of them are:
         • street wear
        • casual
        • business casual
        • smart casual
        • business
        • business for special occasions (“black tie”)
  Clothing style depends on the age, sex, profession, social status, era, society, membership of a subculture, personal taste man, lifestyle and individual characteristics, nationality, appropriateness, religious affiliation, functionality.     Accents are placed usually by shoes, colour fabrics, prints, decoration and texture of the fabric, cut of the clothes, the combination and accessories.
   There are such styles of teenage fashion in the UK:
     1.”The Elite Schoolgirls”.  It’s a simple and neat style suitable for almost everyone. This style appeared in English schools. The finest time of this style came in 1980. The true elite schoolgirls were to follow a few rules: continuity, thrift, lightness, sportiness and education. In our time this style is considered to be simple and elegant and is never out of fashion. “Elite” can be recognized from others in the street by shirts buttoned, knitted vests, jeans, skirts, pearls, marine strip, loafers, sandals.
   2. Punk rock. The main colours of this style are: black, white, red and pink. The style is characterized by the following elements of clothing: jeans with studs and zippers, asymmetrical shirts, black leather pants, belts with thorns, stockings, shoes.
    3. Gothic glamour. It came from Germanic tribes. Officially it was in England in 1970. It can be recognized by all that you can wear: black skirts, corsets, belts, vintage dresses, black leather, army boots, stockings, black nail Polish, black lipstick, the shadow, etc.
   4. Hippies.This style is simple and unpretentious. It has many accessories and ethnic components. As true «flower children, hippies like everything natural: natural materials with a minimum of clothing of bright acid colours. Hippies wear simple cotton T-shirts without labels and logos of well-known companies. They also wear leather or denim jackets and flared jeans or pants. You can see  them in simple flip-flops, bright sneakers, sandals or even barefoot.

5.Denim - jeans - favorite comfort

              Popular styles for teenagers in Russia in 2013-2014 are:

1. Casual 
2. Romantic 

They love this style: puffy skirts, light dresses, ruffles
3.Glam- rock
4.Biker’s style 

They wear  a leather jacket and trousers of the skin. These trendy costume elements are not only for boys, but also for  girls.
5. Retrо-style of the 60's 

Dresses, coats, overcoats of A - shaped silhouette are ideal for the figures of the young girls

7. Sporty 

Clothes with a sporty look are popular. They make people look healthy and energetic. In costumes of the style «sport chic» you can go out to the party, especially in combination with the shoes on high heels, as it is offered by the brand of Juicy Couture.
8. Military

the style is interesting to teenage boys.

            1.3 A trend in a fashion is a direction of the development of a fashion.

Looking through the materials on the subject, I found out that Britain gave the world many fashion trends: vintage, street and classic.
The most popular trends of the traditional trends in the UK are  (Appendix 1):
Classic.

 In the late 18th century, London was the centre of men's fashion. The bourgeoisie had provoked light classics - coats, jacket, leather briefcases and, of course, hats. The well-known dandy was the first who began to set the tone for the upper society. A classic has neither experiment in colour nor in cutting in England now! It consists of a suit or a sweater under the throat, arrows pants, coats and sometimes umbrella.

Vintage.

Then vintage came. It became popular so quickly that all famous designers included elements of vintage fashion into their collections: high waistlines, colored shirts, worn portfolios and moccasins English dandies showed an example for the world, doing the shopping in the shopping malls and flea markets, but not in the boutiques.
Street fashion.

 It combines the things of different styles and different epochs. There are a huge number of Department stores and various shopping centres, clubs, bars and restaurants in any English city. Boys and girls look very different, unusual, bright and extravagant in the streets. At the first glance things they wear cannot be combined, but it looks very nice. It’s very fashionable to wear men's jackets with the feminine dress or skirt. Their clothing is in different colours: black, red, yellow, blue, etc. The fabrics are very different, everything except jeans

     Traditional trends in a teenage fashion in Russia:
Classics

 It is  brighter than in the UK .
Baroque.

It is more suitable for evening dresses. It is luxury and pretentiousness, rich fabrics, expensive lace, elegant embroidery, inlaid with precious stones.

 Military. 

It is characterized by the existence of military subjects in clothes. It combines a camouflage colour, khaki uniform, army footwear.
Street fashion 

It is fashionable every year in Russia and  becomes more interesting and diverse. Street style is combines glam rock, casual, boho-chic, as well as a mixture of different styles from sport to business. Collections of Eugenia Apple boom, Camilla Galliulina, Vita Kovaleva, and Anna Vershinina have a great success.
Safari is represented in shorts, pants, trousers and shirts with short sleeves.
To sum it up: Although the styles of clothing for teenagers differ in these countries, but those accessories, items of clothing used by them for addition   make them similar. There are similar styles (casual, glamorous, street) and trends (classics, street) in a teenagers’ fashion in Russia and in the UK.

1.4. The most popular fashion brands of teenagers’ clothing 

Fashion brands of clothing are associated with the name of the designer, the firm, the goods and services. All these components complement each other. This is an easy recognized name and logo, the guaranteed quality, the generally known, accessibility (in terms of the possibility of purchase) and prestige.
In the UK the most popular brands are : River Island, Burberry, Top shop, Peacocks(see Annex 5).

My classmates could name such brands as «Obey», «Ebау», «Supreme», Juicy Couture.
           We’ve got our favourite   fashion brands of clothing. They are «O’stin», “Gloria jeans’ (the shopping center «Crystal»). “Vo  bla”, «Trendy jeans»(shopping centre «Admiral), «YOURs». You can buy fashionable clothes there, for example, the “Park”, a warm jacket with a hood. It looks like an English hooded jacket ... We call it “hypnosis youth”, because almost every teenager dreams about it... or bomber that is reminiscent of the Varsity jacket (University bomber) – the jacket, which became a sort of Board of “honor”. In the UK colleges’   students put awards for academic activity on the left side of the jacket. They were big letters.
To sum it up: Despite the fact that there are different   popular brands for teenagers in Russia and Great Britain fashionable clothes have the same elements and accessories.
The key concept in teen’s fashion is movement.  The clothes should be convenient to move.
The second direction is freshness, and   the colours.
When selecting trendy clothes teenagers pay attention to accessories. A funny handbag, a backpack, a scarf or a belt – these things can give the completeness of the image. The main point is not to combine the «adult» things with teenagers’ ones... There is a big industry of teenage fashion in all countries... Fashion is a big business. There is a great number of people participating in the purchase, sale and production of clothes. They are than in any other business in the world from year to year.

  Chapter 2   Who dictates fashion for teenagers?

2.1.Youth subcultures.

  In Russia and the UK teenagers wear fashionable clothes not only for looking stylish. Clothes for them are one of the ways of self-expression, the  chance to be noticed and to show the world what they  really are. Therefore there is nothing surprising in the fact that very often the guys use symbols and try to find like-minded people.
  Clothing styles of teens is   related to their view of life, their way of life and to their purpose in life. As is known, teenagers may belong to a subculture where they can maintain and build their individuality. They’ve got a uniform style of clothing. Goths, hippies, punks, ravers, emo and other groups easily recognizable both in Russia and in the UK. Fashion often defines the characteristics of the teenagers and youth subculture – their musical tastes

2.2 Factors influencing on the choice of the teenagers in the fashion world (according to the test):
1.Fashion magazines (a lot of them: “Yes”, “the Town of Fashion”, “Cool”, “Quelle”)
2.Desire to look like the stars, idols from the world of music, video, books, films.
(In the 1980s attribute of every fashion is a steel lace and pearls thanks to the Madonna. In the 1990s crazy popularity was gained hairstyle in the style of Jennifer Anniston)
Not every fashion - lover can spend much money on designer shoes or visits to star stylists, but the imitation allow looking like a celebrity. A biography of a star produces a strong impression on fans
3.TV.
Several years ago teenagers called “MTV Generation” because of the explicit imitation of musicians and singers from MTV. Now the trend is not so obvious and current teenagers are often called ‘Generation X’
4.Friends’ approval
5.The Internet
6.Parents’ advice
To sum it up: Dressing in accordance with the latest fashion trends, teenagers consciously or unconsciously solves several tasks. Firstly, to stand out in comparison with adults. Secondly, following the fashion in clothes for youth is a way to feel belonging to the society of peers, to its subculture, to adopt its similarity at all. Thirdly, the desire to stand out among their peers, and to adopt their “unlikeness “

                                                 CONCLUSION

While investigating the material we found out, that though teenagers live in different countries,  there are more similarities than differences in teenagers ‘fashion  in Russia and the UK as it was expected. And this is not accidentally. Clothing is a way of people’s communication. The Internet is of great importance. It is easy to see that the trends in Russia and England strongly overlap.  Most teenagers prefer “Casual” because it’s very comfortable. “Clothes make the man», says the English wise proverb. It is actual both in the UK and in Russia.

LITERATURE

Андрощук Н.А. и др.”Технология подготовки к ЕГЭ по англ.яз.” -СПб: ООО “Книжный дом” 2012 г.

Кауфман К.И.  Английский язык  9  класс, изд. “Титул” 2007 г.

Миньяр- Белоручева А.П. “Ответы на экзаменационные вопросы”, 11 класс. Изд. ”Экзамен”, Москва 2003 г.

http://festival.1september.ru/articles/528481/pril.ppt

http://www.kakprosto.ru/kak-83207-chto-takoe-trend#ixzz2p1ISL4m

http://www.kakprosto.ru/kak-83207-chto-takoe-trend#ixzz2p1IaJ4P9

http://lesita.com.ua/?page_id=7793

http://www.retromoda.ru/categories/soviet-fashion

http://www.chiddingstone.kent.sch.uk/homework/war/1970s.html,

http://budesh.net/lining/346-sovremennaya-moda-podrostkov-kakaya-ona.html

http://fb.ru/article/2749/obraz-jizni-podrostka-v-rossii

http://budesh.net/lining/346-sovremennaya-moda-podrostkov-kakaya-ona.html

http://budesh.net/lining/295-odezhda-dlya-tineidzherov-pomogaet-im-povysit-samootsenku.html

Appendix  1 THE MAIN STYLES

In Great Britain:

1. ”The Elite Schoolgirls”.                       2. Gothic glamour.

2. Punk rock. 

3. Glam rock

4. Hippies.

IN RUSSIA:

             1.Сasual                                                                  2. Romantic

              3.Sporty        4.Biker’s style

Appendix2 THE MOST POPULAR TRENDS OF TEENAGERS’FASHION

In Great Britain

1. Classic                                                    2.Vintage

Both in: In Great Britain and in Russia.

      3.Street                                                                    4.Denim

5.“Military”        

                           6.Сasual

APPENDIX 3  THE IMAGE OF CONTEMPORARY TEENAGERS

English teenagers:

Russian teenagers:

 APPENDIX4   POPULAR BRANDS

    IN RUSSIA (KOTLAS):

    IN GREAT BRITAIN:

APPENDIX 5 THE RESULTS OF TESTING

Questionnaire 1

1. What is fashion?

2. Your attitude to fashion:

 А. indifferent.

 Б. I follow fashion.

 В. I wear what I comfortable for me.

3. Who dictates fashion?

4. What shoes brands do you prefer? 

5. What clothes brands do you wear? (Твоё, “O’stin”, “Gloria Jeans”, “Trendy Jeans”, “Vo bla”)

Eleven teenagers agreed to answer my questions.

        Question 1: 3 persons didn’t answer

        Question 2: Indifferent -5. Follow fashion -1. I wear comfortable clothes-5.

        Question 3:  Different answers – 9 (Table), 2-no answer

         Question 4: Аdidas – 2, Nike– 5, Riker-1

        Question 5: “Tvoye” -4, “Gloria Jeans” -6, “O’stin” -6, “Trendy Jeans” -1.

To sum up:   1. The girls more care about fashion, than the boys

                      2. There are many sources of information about fashion

                      3. Our teenagers prefer Casual. They can buy clothes of fashionable

                      brands in the shop departments in Kotlas and Koryazhma.

APPENDIX 6 FACTORS, INFLUENSED ON THE TEENAGERS’ CHOICE IN FASHION QUESTIONNAAIRE 2

30 teenagers gave  their answers:

To sum up:   1. The friends’ approval, the opportunity to match the group’s

                         requirement standards influence on teenagers’ way of clothing

                      2. The Internet   makes it possible to get acquaintance with fashionable

                        in the world

                      3. Fashion magazines help to choose the suitable trend.