Reading skills - CARNABY STREET -THE MECCA OF THE YOUNG

     Carnaby Street, once a gloomy street full of workshops, is now one of the pivots of English youth. Crammed together are more than a dozen shops selling fashionable clothes for young men — floral ties, pink shirts with white spots, and trousers in every colour from white to purple. Their window displays are young and modern; for example, in one window female figures, draped with strings of large gold coins, encourage passers-by to buy the shirts and sweaters hung between them. Carnaby Street is a young people's street; the crowds in the street are young, and from the open door of every shop the sound of pop music incessantly pours.

     Nine of the shops in Carnahy Street belong to one man — John Stephen, who is justly proud of being known as the King of Carnaby Street. He opened his first shop there nine years ago. It was a small shop with two people working at the back, making pairs of denim trousers, denim jackets, and denim skirts. At once the clothes became popular with young people, and, in a few months, they were being sold as fast as they could be made. One of the reasons for this immediate success was that Stephen as a twenty-year-old knew what other young men of his age wanted.

     At the top of Carnaby Street is a famous variety theatre, where the pop music stars play to big audiences. The responsibility for the success of John Stephen belongs to these stars. Where the pop stars led their fans followed the clothes that Carnaby Street sold became almost the uniform of a new kind of teenager. It has been said that these teenagers represent the whole new spirit that is modern Britain, a classless spirit that has grown out of the Second World War.

    At first glance, the uninitiated may find it hard to distinguish between the sexes — who are boys and who are girls. Long and short hair styles are worn by both. Trousers are universal. The answer to those who criticize this is that, because boys and girls now live the same sort of lives, they want to wear the same sort of clothes.

Carnaby Street, as an institution, is established. Carnaby Street is modern and brash. Some people enjoy the new gaiety it has brought; others hate everything it represents. But good or bad its success depends on the teenagers, and, at the moment, they think it wonderful.

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