Name: 6 Minute English - Fashion and Shopping Mega Class! One Hour of New Vocabulary!
Uploaded: 2020-12-26T18:50:22.000Z
Duration: 1 h 57 s
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Hello. This is 6 Minute English from  BBC Learning English. I'm Georgina…

In this programme, we're talking about buying  

clothes and only wearing them a few  times before buying more clothes!

This is something known as  fast fashion – it's popular,  

it might make us feel good, but  it's not great for the environment.

Which is why lots of people this year are pledging  – or promising publicly - to buy no new clothes.

I for one am wearing the same  shirt I bought seven years ago.

You're certainly not a fashion  victim, Neil! But first,  

let's test your knowledge of  fast fashion with a question.  

Do you know how many items of clothing were  sent to landfill in the UK in 2017? Was it… 

a) 23 million items, b) 234 million items or 

c) 2.3 billion items What do you think, Neil?

I'm sure it's lots, but not billions,  so I'm going to say 23 million items.

I shall tell you if you're right  at the end of the programme.  

Let's talk more about fast fashion, which is  being blamed for contributing to global warming.

And discarded clothes – that means ones  that are thrown away - are also piling  

up in landfill sites, and fibre fragments are  flowing into the sea when clothes are washed.

It's not great – and I've heard the average  time someone wears something is just seven!  

So why is this, and what is driving  our desire to keep buying more clothes?

I think we should hear from  fashion journalist Lauren Bravo,  

who's been speaking on the BBC  Radio 4 programme, You and Yours.  

She explained that clothes today are relatively  cheaper than those from her parents' days…

A lot of clothing production got outsourced  - offshored over to the developing world,  

so countries like Indonesia, India, Bangladesh  and China are now responsible for making the  

vast bulk of all the clothes that are sold  in the UK. And with that, we've seen what  

we call 'chasing the cheapest needle' around  the world, so the fashion industry constantly  

looking to undercut competitors, and with that  clothes getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.

Right, so clothes – in the developed  world at least – have become cheaper  

because they are produced in developing countries.  

These are countries which are trying to become  more advanced economically and socially.

So production is outsourced – that means work  usually done in one company is given to another  

company to do, often because that company  has the skills to do it. And in the case of  

fashion production, it can be done cheaper by  another company based in a developing country.

Lauren used an interesting expression  'chasing the cheapest needle' – so the  

fashion industry is always looking to  find the company which can make clothes  

cheaper – a company that can undercut another  one means they can do the same job cheaper.

Therefore the price of  clothes gets cheaper for us.

OK, so it might be good to be  able to buy cheaper clothes.  

But why do we have to buy more –  and only wear items a few times?

It's all about our obsession  with shopping and fashion.  

It's something Lauren Bravo goes  on to explain on the You and Yours  

radio programme. See if you can hear  what she blames for this obsession…

Buying new things has almost become a trend  in itself for certain generations. I think  

that feeling that you can't be seen in the same  thing twice, it really stems from social media,  

particularly. And quite often people are buying  those outfits to take a photo to put on Instagram.  

It sounds illogical, but I think when all of your  

friends are doing it there is  this invisible pressure there.

Lauren makes some interesting points. Firstly,  

for some generations, there is  just a trend for buying things.

It does seem very wasteful, but, as Lauren says,  some people don't like to be seen wearing the same  

thing twice. And this idea is caused by social  media – she uses the expression 'stems from'.

She describes the social pressure of needing  to be seen wearing new clothes on Instagram.  

And the availability of cheap  clothes means it's possible to post  

new images of yourself wearing  new clothes very regularly.

Hmm, it sounds very wasteful and to  me, illogical – not reasonable or  

sensible and more driven by emotions  rather than any practical reason.

But, there is a bit of a backlash now – that's  a strong negative reaction to what is happening.  

Some people are now promising to buy second-hand  clothes, or 'vintage clothes', or make do with the  

clothes they have and mend the ones they need.  It could be the start of a new fashion trend.

Yes, and for once, I will  be on trend! And it could  

reduce the amount of clothes sent to  landfill that you mentioned earlier.

Yes, I asked if you knew how many items  of clothing were sent to landfill in the  

UK in 2017? Was it… a) 23 million items, 

b) 234 million items or c) 2.3 billion items 

And you were wrong. It's actually 234  million items – that's according to  

the Enviro Audit Committee. It also found that 1.2  

billion tonnes of carbon emissions is  released by the global fashion industry.

Well, we're clearly throwing away too many clothes  

but perhaps we can recycle some of  the vocabulary we've mentioned today?

I think we can, starting with pledging  - that means publicly promising to do  

something. You can make a pledge to do something.

When something is outsourced,it  is given to another company to do,  

often because that company has the skills  to do it or it can be done cheaper.

And if one company undercuts another, it  charges less to do a job than its competitor.

The expression stems from means 'is caused by' or  

'a result of'. We mentioned that rise in fast  fashion stems from sharing images on Instagram.

And we mentioned this being illogical.  So it seems unreasonable - not sensible,  

and more driven by emotions  rather than any practical reason.

And a backlash is a strong negative  reaction to what is happening.

And that brings us to the end of our discussion  about fast fashion! Please join us again next  

Hello and welcome to Six Minute English.  I'm Neil and joining me today is Dan – who  

is weighed down with shopping bags and wearing  something very… strange. What's going on, Dan?

Hi everyone. Well, I was feeling a bit miserable  so I decided to cheer myself up by going shopping!

Well that's lucky because the link  between shopping and mood is what  

we're looking at in this 6 Minute  English – and of course we'll be  

giving you six mood and shopping-related  vocabulary items. But first, our quiz:

Online shoppers in which  country spend more per household  

than consumers in any other country, according  to a report from the UK Cards Association?

Norway seems to come top of lots of lists, so  for that reason alone I'm going to say Norway.

We'll find out at the end of the show.  

Now, Dan, you said just now that you went  shopping because you were feeling down.

That's right – I like a bit of retail therapy.

Retail therapy is a humorous expression which  means going shopping to make yourself feel better.

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6 Minute English - Fashion and Shopping Mega Class! One Hour of New Vocabulary!

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