LTE

London Tests of English

Session One: May 2007

Tape Script

Level 5

Hello everyone! Today’s test is the London Tests of English Level Five. The
theme of this test is Fashion. This test lasts two hours and fifty-five minutes.
There are five tasks. Tasks One and Two are listening. You must listen to the
tape and write your answers in this booklet. Good luck!

Task One: Interview with Fashion Designer Tina Forbes.

You are doing a class project on fashion and you hear a radio interview with a
young fashion designer. Listen to the interview and read the questions below.
For each question, put a cross in the box next to the correct answer, as in the
example.

You will hear the interview twice. Do as much as you can the first time and
finish your work the second time.

You have one and a half minutes to read the questions.


[ ONE AND A HALF MINUTES PAUSE ]

Listen carefully. The interview starts now.


[ TONE/BEEP ]

[ FIVE SECOND PAUSE ]

Presenter:

Becoming a fashion designer is now one of the most sought after

careers among young people, overtaking such traditional ambitions

as appearing in films or being a pop star. What a lot of young

hopefuls don't realize is how much work is involved, and what a

competitive and cut-throat business it is.

So when I decided to find out what the industry is really like, I

started thinking about who I could ask. As luck would have it, I heard

that the young up-and-coming designer Tina Forbes was in London on

a flying visit.

She took a break from her busy schedule to sit down in the studio

with me and answer a few questions. I can tell you, she made quite

a first impression! As soon as she walked in with a wonderful

beaming smile on her face, there was no doubt as to who she was.

Immediately at ease, I introduced myself and got started with my

first question.

So, Tina ... let's start at the beginning. How did you first get

interested in fashion?

Tina:

Well, fashion has been part of my life for as long as I remember. I

grew up watching music programmes on TV. I adored everything

about pop and rock music, including of course all the fashion

associated with it. I had absolutely loads of Barbie dolls and

complete wardrobes for all of them. I didn’t start creating clothing

for myself until a few years later when I was in high school. Around

the same time I was also playing around with web and graphic

design. I used to wear some of the clothing I made and people said

nice things about it, so I decided to have a go at setting up an online

boutique. And that was the start of it all.

Presenter:

Where do you get your inspiration from? Does it reflect your own

taste?

Tina:

Now this is a funny thing - my collections tend to use a lot of bright,

eye-catching colours, but my personal taste is more sober. I wear a

lot of black. The thing is, creating clothing gives me the chance to

make things for figures other than my own, clothes that I wouldn’t

be able to wear myself. But they’re all my ideas and I guess my

ideas reflect my style in some way.

Presenter:

Has your personal style changed along with the development of your

own

label?

Tina:

My style changes all the time actually, so I don’t know if I could say

the label has had a significant effect on my own individual style

What has had an impact is just being more out there in the fashion

world, being exposed to it, you know?

Presenter:

So, tell me, what type of girl wears Tina Forbes clothes?

Tina:

Well, I guess it would be someone who wants to be stylish and

comfortable. Someone who’s not bothered about attracting a bit of

attention. Obviously my clothes don’t suit everyone - we’re not all

like that, but luckily for me a fair number are!

Presenter:

And how would you summarise the label’s image? How would you like

others to view your line of clothing?

Tina:

Fresh and different, but the kind of different that you want to own

because it expresses who you are.

Presenter:

Nice answer - you’ve obviously thought about that one before. Now,

here’s a question I’ve been wanting to ask - what’s the fashion

industry really like? I imagine there’s a lot of looking over your

shoulder, checking out the competition.

Tina:

Actually it’s surprising. Maybe this only applies to Australia but I’ve

been amazed that there’s a lot of co-operation. One thing I do

dislike though is the emphasis on money. There’s a myth about the

industry that it’s all glamour. I must say though that overall I

haven’t had any great disappointments, though maybe that’s

because I try not to have unrealistic expectations.

Presenter:

One last question. What would you say to a young person who was

thinking of a career in fashion?

Tina:

I’d say learn from as many different people as you can. There’s only

so much you can learn at college, and there’s no substitute for

getting out in the real world and meeting people in the industry.

[ FIVE SECOND PAUSE ]


You will now hear the interview again.

[ TONE/BEEP ]

[ REPEAT RECORDED TEXT ]

[ FIVE SECOND PAUSE ]

That is the end of Task One. Now go on to Task Two.


Task Two: Globalisation and Fashion

You hear a lecture on globalisation and fashion. Listen to the lecture and
complete the sentences below as briefly as you can, as in the example. You will
hear the lecture twice. Do as much as you can the first time and finish your

work the second time.

You have one minute to read the sentences.


[ ONE MINUTE PAUSE ]


Listen carefully. The lecture starts now.

[ TONE/BEEP ]

[ FIVE SECOND PAUSE ]

I want to look today at how we, as consumers, are connected with the global

market whenever we buy an item of clothing. You probably didn’t know this, but

the average British woman owns 16 blouses. In the 1940s, she owned two.

Increasingly, people define themselves through what they buy and what they wear.

Browsing through the racks, hands move from label to label, checking price,

washing instructions and fabric. But even if the label carries the country of origin -

not a legal requirement in Britain - it tells you nothing about the hands that cut,

sewed and packed your latest purchase.

Clothes are getting cheaper. The retail trade is in a permanent price war and

nowhere is more cut-throat than the rag trade. If shops let clothes prices rise, they

see customers move next door to cheaper outlets. While retail prices in general

rose by 50 per cent between 1987 and 1996, clothing and footwear rose by just 16

per cent. Such price reductions have been mirrored in the electronic goods

industry, where the buying public get more and more for their pound with each

passing year. But in the clothing sector the most competitive sector of all is

womenswear, where prices rose by less than one per cent in those ten years. In

real terms, i.e. allowing for inflation, prices of women’s clothes have fallen by a

third.

That inexorable downward pressure on prices lies at the heart of globalisation. It

forces retailers to look for ever-cheaper sources of clothes, transmitting the

pressure through their buyers to the manufacturers, who roam the globe looking

for cheaper labour and higher quality and productivity. Ask for a wage rise in

Bangladesh and the boss says the jobs will go to Sri Lanka. Ask in Sri Lanka, and the

answer comes back - the jobs will go to Bangladesh.

In 1996, consumers in Britain spent about £400 per person on clothes; women spent

twice as much as men. Altogether we spent £23 billion, slightly more than we spent

on cars.

The growth sector of the 1990s has been sportswear; the annual market for

replica football kits is now £150 million. Newcastle United Football Club vice-

chairman Doug Hall is brutally clear about how it works. During a drunken interview

with an undercover News of the World reporter he said, "We sell 600,000 shirts a

year. That’s quite a lot. And it gives the club’s finances quite a boost, I can tell

you! Why? Because every shirt costs £50, but the shirts only cost £5 to make in

Asia. Even allowing for transport and other costs, we make £35 a time.

Marks and Spencer dominates clothes retailing in Britain. In 1997/8 it sold £4.3bn

worth of clothing, footwear and gifts, giving it a 15 per cent share of the UK

market. It is perhaps most associated with underwear, accounting for about 35 per

cent of the UK market. It has also built a reputation for high quality food.

During the 1920s, Marks and Spencer broke with British retailing tradition by

eliminating wholesalers and buying clothes direct from manufacturers. Marks and

Spencer still buys most of its clothes from a handful of manufacturers.

While many other high street retailers buy the majority of their clothes from

overseas, M&S still buys British. The company is often credited with single-

handedly ensuring the survival of at least part of the British clothing industry. In

1997, some 65 per cent of M&S clothes were produced in factories in the United

Kingdom, but over the last 15 years it has worked with its suppliers to source an

increasing percentage from outside, especially from Asia, Eastern and Southern

Europe and North Africa. So does this mean the end of an era? No, we needn’t be

too cynical. And the reason for this is that this new way of working involves

establishing relationships with "like-minded factory owners", and working with

them to raise quality and working conditions to M&S standards.

So, all in all, who knows, perhaps we have at least some reason to be optimistic!

[ FIVE SECOND PAUSE ]


You will now hear the lecture again.


[ TONE/BEEP ]

[ REPEAT RECORDED TEXT ]

[ FIVE SECOND PAUSE ]


That is the end of the listening tasks. The other tasks test your reading and
writing of English. Now go on to Task Three.