For most people, the word 'fashion' means 'clothes'. When people ask the question, 'What's in fashion in Italy?' they normally mean, 'What clothes are in fashion?' And they use the adjective, 'fashionable' in the same way. 'She was wearing some fashionable boots. '' His shirt was a really fashionable colour.' But, of course, there are fashions in many things, not only in clothes. There are fashions in holidays, in restaurants, in films and books. There are even fashions in university courses, jobs, and in languages. A few years ago, it was quite fashionable to study Russian. Now quite a lot of students want to learn Chinese. Of course, there are many reasons for this some students can now visit China. They read about China in the newspapers. There are programmes about China on television. A number of Chinese students now study in Western Europe. There are fashions in all sorts of things. Even in a language text book! Look at the book you use to learn English. If it was published in Britain during the last five years, it probably has a lot of pictures. There will probably be handwritten letters and postcards. There may be a story and photographs of the characters at the beginning of the book. There will be oral exercises which you can do in pairs or small groups. And there will probable be cassette recordings of people who speak 'naturally'. There may even be songs on the cassette. There have been a lot of new ideas about learning languages in the last few years. And new ideas need new kinds of books. Or is it just fashion? Fashions change naturally. If you look at pictures of people or objects from the past, you will see that fashions have always changed. An English house of 1750 was different from one of 1650. A fashionable man in 1780 looked very different from his grandson in 1860. There are obvious reasons for this. The man of 1860 lived in an industrial age. His way of life was different from his grandfather's, so his clothes were different. He listened to different sorts of music and looked at different styles of paintings. Fashions had changed. Nowadays, fashions change very quickly. Some of this is natural. We hear about things much more quickly than in the past. Newspapers, radio, telex and television send information from one country to another in a few hours. But there are other reasons. New fashions mean that people will buy new things. Fashion is helped by clever advertising and journalism. There is money in fashion! For most people, the word 'fashion', means ______.