2013年职称英语考试《综合类A级》考试真题_职称英语考试真题综合类

2013年职称英语考试《综合类A级》考试真题

Almost 20 years have passed since the unusual economics of the couture business were first exposed. Outraged that he was losing money on evening dresses costing tens of thousands of pounds, the couturier Jean-Louis Scherrer published of his costs. One outfit he described curtained over half a mile of gold thread, 18, 000 sequins (亮片), and had required hundreds of hours of hand-stitching in an atelier (制作室). A fair price would have been ~ 50, 000 , but the couturier could only get ~ 35, 000 for it. Rather than riding high on the foolishness of the super-rich, he and his team could barely feed their hungry families.

The result was an outcry and the first of a series of government and industry-sponsored inquiries into the surreal ( 超现实的) world of ultimate fashion. The trade continues to insist that couture offers you more than you pay for, but its not as simple as that. When such a temple of old wealth starts talking about value for money. It isnt to convince anyone that dresses costing as much as houses are a bargain. Rather, it is to preserve the peculiar mystique (神秘), lucrative (利润丰厚的) associations and threatened interests that couture represents.

Essentially, the arguments couldnt be simpler. On one side are those who say that the business will die if it doesnt change. On the other are those who say it will die if it does. Huge in its costs, tiny in its clientele and questionable in its influence, it still remains one of the great themes of Parisian life. In his book, The Fashion Conspiracy, Nicholas Coleridge estimates that the entire couture industry rests on the whims (一时兴起) of less than 30 immensely wealthy women, and although the number may have grown in recent years with the new prosperity of Asia, the number of couture customers worldwide is no more than 4, 000.