to a brief

Fashion is a hard business．There is a continuous amount of stress because work is at a constant and extremely fast speed to prepare for the next season's collections．It is extremely competitive and there is the constant need to make attractive advertisements of the latest fashion in newspapers and magazines．It also requires continual freshness because the appetite for new ideas is hard to satisfy．"We try to warn people before they come to us about how tough it is．" says Lydia Kemeny, the Head of Fashion at St．Martin's School of Art in London．"And we point out that drive and determination are absolutely necessary．"
This may seem far removed from the popular opinions of fashionable young people spending their time designing pretty dresses．That may well be what they do in their first year of study but a good college won't be slow in introducing students to commercial realities．"We don't walk our foot on the blossoming flower of creativity but in the second year we start introducing the restrictions of price, producingability, marketing and so on．"
Almost all fashion design is done to a brief．It is not a form of self-expression as such, although there is certainly room for imagination and creativity．

What does the underlined "this" refer to?
A. Lydia Kemeny's opinion.
B. The warning to the young designers.
C. The real situation in fashion industry.
Which one is correct?

What does walk our foot on mean? Does it mean "destroy?
What does "All fashion is done to a brief" mean?

Thank you for your help!

Jason

jasonlulu_2000 said:

What does walk our foot on mean? Does it mean "destroy"? IMO, if not 'destroy', at least 'restrain'.
What does "All fashion is done to a brief" mean?

Thank you for your help!

Jason

Click to expand...

charliedeut

Again I doubt if a native speaker was involved. Nobody 'walks their foot'. The verb 'walk' is usually intransitive; it is only transitive when there is a potential contaminant: 'Don't walk that sugar into the carpet; I'll sweep it up as soon as I get off the phone.' (Perhaps in that case 'tread... into' would be better...:-?.)

When you do something 'to a brief' you follow detailed instructions (in this case, about potential markets, costs, dates...).

b

BobK said:

Again I doubt if a native speaker was involved. Nobody 'walks their foot'.

Click to expand...

You'll find the full passage here, buried among a lot of dodgy English.

5jj said:

You'll find the full passage here, buried among a lot of dodgy English.

Click to expand...

:shock:

5jj said:

You'll find the full passage here, buried among a lot of dodgy English.

Click to expand...

Ummmmmmmmm, I'm pretty sure that's not the site you intended to send us to!!!! :shock:

Thank you for your help!

But there is still one question unanswered.

What does the underlined "this" refer to?
A. Lydia Kemeny's opinion.
B. The warning to the young designers.
C. The real situation in fashion industry.

Which one is correct? Is it also dodgyly worded?

The real situation.

5jj said:

You'll find the full passage here, buried among a lot of dodgy English.

Click to expand...

There's something dodgy going on here but I don't think it's the English.

emsr2d2 said:

Ummmmmmmmm, I'm pretty sure that's not the site you intended to send us to!!!! :shock:

Click to expand...

Oddly enough, it was the link I copied. If you go back to that site, and 'Find: "walk our foot", you will be transferred to the text.

5jj said:

Oddly enough, it was the link I copied. If you go back to that site, and 'Find: "walk our foot", you will be transferred to the text.

Click to expand...

In the page it takes me to, there is no English text whatsoever. None. It's a Chinese 2012 calendar where every photo is a impressive-cleavaged sex toy mannequin. No text just all the 2012 dates, all written in Chinese script. I did go back to it and ask my browser to translate it but nowhere at all did the words "walk our foot" appear in the translation. I don't think I dare click on it a third time!

Have you scrolled down to the bottom half of the page? The text quoted is down there all right.

Rover

I was shocked enough at the top part of the page that I closed the window. Not the sort of thing I want on my browsing history.

Rover_KE said:

Have you scrolled down to the bottom half of the page? The text quoted is down there all right.

Rover

Click to expand...

I did finally get to the bottom of the page and found some English text but to be honest, I wasn't willing to stay on the page any longer. It's not that I have an issue with the content but the adware which silently watches your browsing activity whether you like it or not, would have had a field day sending me associated content. I can do without that!