Read and translate the text. By 1902, the fashionable shape was a curved S bend, with blouses and boleros frilled in the front and sweeping trains at the back

By 1902, the fashionable shape was a curved "S" bend, with blouses and boleros frilled in the front and sweeping trains at the back, in pale, sweet-pea colors. In 1909 Paul Poiret, the new Paris couturier (dress designer) swept away all this delicacy and introduced his "oriental look". It was inspired by the immense success of the Russian ballet in Paris. A slim vertical line was adopted, in bright pinks, oranges, gold, and greens. Smart women wore turbans for the evening and huge circular hats in the day. These designs were ad­apted to make slim, simple suits or skirts and blouses and were worn by all but the very poor. In frontier America, factory-made cloth replaced homemade, and women saved to buy their best dress from a mail-order catalogue if they could possibly afford to. The demand for fashion had spread down through every layer of society and the new manufacturing methods in the international garment industries made fashionable clothing even cheaper and more widely available.

In Britain, during World War I, women from many walks of life took over work done by absent soldiers - in weapons factories, on farms, in the civil service, and as firemen and milkmen. Some working women daringly wore trousers, but most wore the wider, rather shorter hemlines of the war period.

The 1920s introduced the shock of the "boy -girl" or "garconne" look (garcon is French for "boy"). The fashionable age dropped from 40 to 25. The ideal "twenties" shape was flat-chested and slim. It was emphasized by a short, boyish haircut and a head-hugging cloche (bell-shaped) hat. Waists were aban­doned altogether and skirts had never been so short, stopping just below the knees. Fabrics were light and skirts were made up on the di­agonal or bias, so that they would hang properly. Some young and fashionable girls abandoned their corsets, for newfangled gar­ments called brassieres.

In the mid-1930s Paris designers moved styles towards a more feminine look. Waists were emphasized again and sleeves puffed up in various ways. The skirts of all good-quality garments were still bias cut. For women who could afford large wardrobes, hemlines varied, for the first time ever. They were below the knee for the morning, halfway down the calf for the afternoon and for "cocktails", and full length for evening and formal afternoon func­tions. By 1940 the contrast between day and evening wear was striking: for day, hems were just below the knee but for evening, dresses were shaped like the Victorian crinoline.

The ready-to-wear industries in Europe and the United States turned out copies of designs from Paris and that new center of fashion, Hollywood. These "off-the-rack" clothes, made up in rayon or cotton, were so cheap that by the mid 1930s, nearly everyone could afford one decent, stylish dress.

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