viernes, 8 de marzo de 2013

Legs of Manhattan

It's been over a year since we last published a post on Bill Cunningham's On the Street video section for The New York Times, which deals with the fashion world in New York and New Yorkers' dressing styles. (See Wedding Season.)

In today's video, Bill Cunningham draws our attention to the influence the gothic and medieval eras are having on New York's street fashion.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and fill in the blanks in the transcript with the missing words. The activity is suitable for intermediate students.



This is Bill Cunningham on the (1) ...   ... in New York City. And as the new year blossoms, sure enough the fashion world has gone back to find the future if you will. But this time they didn’t go to the 20s or 30s, they went way back to the (2) ...   ..., late 13th century,  14th century in the early Renaissance. The inspiration, I think, at least to my eyes, looked like the (3) ... courtiers, the men of this period. I saw a woman with a little jacket right out of the period. Think of Romeo when Juliet, and Romeo, and the jacket would have been right for Romeo, except it’s the women have adapted it today, and it’s all in black, doublet jacket, (4) ... , whichever way you want, it’s a silhouette, it’s all there. In the medieval times and the Renaissance of course it was a similar silhouette but it was all in stained glass, (5) ...   ... , so the big difference. Everything about it, big (6) ... , the cottage quilted, the body of the jacket, the flair and (7) ... with very narrow terraces.

It is no question that fashion goes back and then reinvents itself into the future. It is really fascinating and as we enter the kind of (8) ... short days of winter, what could be better than to go to the Cloister Museum, the branch of the Metropolitan and just wallow in the (9) ... and architecture and paintings and tapestries of the (2) ...   ...  and the Renaissance.

Key:
1) fashion front 2) Middle Ages 3) court  4) tights 5) jeweled colours 6) sleeves 7) worn 8) gloomy  9) artifacts