Fashion

Everyone has opinions about what looks good and what doesn’t, which makes fashion great for practicing descriptions and justifying preferences. These questions cover everything from personal style to cultural dress codes and the business side of the industry.

Questions are organized by level from beginner to advanced. A printable PDF of all the questions is available at the bottom of the page.

Beginner (A1-A2)

1. Which country or city do you think is the most fashionable in the world? What makes it so fashionable?
2. Do you prefer functional or fashionable clothing? Why?
3. What kind of clothes do you usually wear? What colors do you like?
4. Where do you like to buy clothes? What’s good about that place?
5. Do you like wearing hats, scarves, or sunglasses? What are some good ones you have?
6. Who has the best style in your family? Tell me about them.
7. How many pairs of shoes do you own? What kinds do you have?
8. What do you wear when you go to a nice restaurant?
9. What’s the most comfortable thing you own? How often do you wear it?
10. Do you dress differently in summer and winter? What changes?
11. Do you have a favorite clothing store? What do they sell there?
12. What do people in your country usually wear to work? How about on weekends?

Elementary (A2)

1. What are some of the silliest fashions you have seen? What made them look so silly?
2. What’s your favorite piece of clothing? Why?
3. What did you wear to the last special event you went to? Why did you choose that?
4. Have you ever bought something and never worn it? Why did that happen?
5. What’s the most uncomfortable thing you’ve ever worn? Why was it so bad?
6. Do you spend a lot of money on clothes or try to save? How do you decide?
7. Have you ever copied someone else’s style? What did you copy?
8. What colors look best on you? Why do you think so?
9. Do you follow fashion trends? Why or why not?
10. What fashion trends from the past do you remember? Why were they popular?
11. Do you prefer shopping alone or with someone? What’s better about your choice?

Intermediate (B1)

1. Would you like to be a fashion model? What are their lives like?
2. Could you date someone if they had a terrible sense of fashion? Why or why not?
3. Is fashion important or not important? Why or why not?
4. What do you think of the fashion industry?
5. Do you think fashions changed as quickly in the past as today? Why or why not?
6. If you were a fashion designer, what kind of clothes would you design?
7. Do you think expensive clothes are worth the money? When are they worth it?
8. What do you think makes someone stylish? Explain your thinking.
9. If you could only wear one color for the rest of your life, what would you choose and why?
10. Do you think people judge others by their clothing? Is it common in your culture or country?
11. Should companies use very thin models in their advertisements? Why do you feel that way?
12. Do you check clothing labels before you buy something? What do you check for?
13. If you could change one thing about how people dress in your country, what would it be and why?
14. Do you think men and women face different pressures about how they dress? Give me some examples.
15. Do you think people should buy fewer clothes and keep them longer? Why do you think so?

Upper-Intermediate (B2)

1. How does fashion affect people’s lives?
2. Should schools have dress codes or uniforms? What are the downsides of each?
3. How has social media changed the fashion industry? What do you think about those changes?
4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of fast fashion for consumers and for the environment?
5. How do fashion trends differ across generations? What factors influence these differences?
6. What role does fashion play in professional success? How much do appearances matter in different industries?
7. Compare how people dressed for work twenty years ago with how they dress now. What has driven those changes?
8. What responsibilities do fashion companies and governments have when it comes to working conditions in clothing factories?
9. What are the psychological effects of fashion on self-esteem and identity? How have you experienced this?
10. How do dress codes at work or school affect the way people express themselves? What are the arguments for and against them?
11. How do different cultures view the same piece of clothing differently? What misunderstandings can that cause?

Advanced (C1)

1. How does fashion serve as a form of self-expression versus social conformity? What tensions exist between these roles?
2. How might the fashion industry simultaneously empower and exploit workers in developing countries? What paradoxes do you see?
3. To what extent does fashion reflect cultural values versus shape them? Explore this tension.
4. What tensions exist between sustainability and accessibility in ethical fashion? How might these be reconciled?
5. How does fast fashion reveal underlying assumptions about identity, consumption, and meaning in modern life?
6. How might the democratization of fashion through social media simultaneously increase and decrease genuine creativity?
7. How do luxury fashion brands create a sense of exclusivity while simultaneously mass-producing their products, and what does this contradiction say about how we assign value to objects?
8. How does the fashion industry’s promotion of body ideals intersect with public health concerns, individual self-expression, and economic incentives to create a uniquely difficult problem?
9. To what extent has the rise of gender-neutral fashion challenged traditional notions of masculinity and femininity, and where does it fall short of the inclusivity it promises?
10. What underlying assumptions about progress, waste, and identity does the concept of seasonal fashion collections reveal, and how do those assumptions conflict with growing environmental awareness?
11. What does the concept of ‘timeless style’ reveal about our relationship with time, mortality, and permanence?

PDF: Download a PDF of all the questions