那些隨意的拖鞋是如何流行起來的？

那些隨意的拖鞋是如何流行起來的？

從前被人們不屑一顧的拖鞋出街，如今成了潮人的心頭好。英國品牌mahabis足以改變你對傳統(tǒng)拖鞋的看法，鞋底、鞋墊和鞋跟可拼接替換，在家時穿著內襯——出門時只需套個鞋底。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

hipster 趕時髦的人[h?pst?]

puffing 使膨脹；吹起[pufi?]

vaporizer 蒸發(fā)器['veip?raiz?(r)]

contraption 奇妙的裝置；精巧的設計[k?n'tr?p?(?)n]

relentless 不間斷的[r?'lentl?s]

tramping 踩['tr?mpi?]

barrister 律師；有資格出席高等法庭并辯護的）專門律師['b?r?st?]

tartan 格子呢的['tɑ?t(?)n]

elude 逃避，躲避[?'l(j)u?d]

閱讀馬上開始，建議您計算一下閱讀整篇文章所用的時間，對照下方的參考值就可以評估出您的英文閱讀水平。

如果您讀完全文用時為： 那么，您的閱讀速度相當于 每分鐘閱讀的英文單詞數(shù)

4分52秒 母語為英語者的朗讀速度 140

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0分6秒 母語為英語的速讀高手 1000

How did the humble slipper become so cool?（662words）

By Jonathan Margolis

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I was in Bristol, in the west of England, recently and was struck by the number of borderline hipster/hippies puffing not on ecigarettes, but those newer, vaporiser contraptions. It struck me that, in effect, pipes are back.

So if it’s possible to reinvent the pipe for new generations, what success could someone expect if they reimagined the pipe’s traditional companion, the carpet slipper — and charged ￡69 a pair for a stylish version of what can be had for ￡7.50 in Marks and Spencer?

A decent chance, according to a 35-year-old London entrepreneur, Ankur Shah. His slippers for hipsters, Mahabis, are selling at a rate of 500 a day. Mr Shah’s company turned over ￡1.5m in its first year, ￡10m in its second and is heading for ￡18m in this, year three. It was also profitable, Mr Shah says, from the start.

If the Mahabis name seems familiar, it is because the online campaign to popularise its footwear has been relentless. Lines of these hybrid sneaker/slipper/mules have been tramping across my screens for months.

“But really,” I asked Mr Shah when we sat down for a coffee close to his Shoreditch office in London. “Slippers?”

Ankur Shah is an unlikely slipper magnate. The son of doctors in Lancashire, in northern England, he studied law, worked for the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, was a criminal barrister, built a social media advertising company and sold it to Experian.

The Mahabis story-so-far is interesting as an exemplar of the speed at which technology allows a business to be built. Three years ago, Mr Shah hadn’t given slippers a thought, although he was wearing a pair all day, as he was at home with a back injury, cash rich from the Experian sale, but without much to do.

Today, he claims 200,000 people in 40 countries wear them. He believes he has the beginnings of another Ugg, which popularised sheepskin boots, or a Havaianas, the Brazilian flip-flops company, or even a Nike.

It began with Mr Shah’s data obsession. “I started looking around at data for fun, to see what people were searching for and buying online,” he told me. “I looked at flip-flops.” “Then I typed in ‘slippers’, and the search volumes were 60 per cent higher than for flip-flops, a ￡4bn industry. Yet I couldn’t name a single slipper brand.”

He thought about where he might source slippers to sell them online, but found only “dowdy, fluffy, tartan things nobody would want to wear”. Then he wondered if an iconic, premium brand could be invented.

It was then a matter of coming up with a design, printing endless 3D models, getting multiple flights to Krakow in Poland, a major slipper manufacturing country. He eventually settled on production in Portugal and Italy, and launched in 2014.

The moment he realised he was on to something was when the website got 10,000 orders on day one.

“I guess slippers are forgotten about, but for the freelancer generation, working from home, they’re worn all day, seven days a week,” he says, although he admits a full explanation for their success thus far eludes him.

The slippers are certainly extremely comfortable, but Mahabis are still essentially an online marketing phenomenon. Mr Shah says the company spends “millions a year” with Facebook and other “display networks”, which ensure adverts pop up unasked for on other websites.

With Mahabis, meanwhile, flying out of the warehouse in Swindon, in the west of England, the 12-strong team in Shoreditch that runs the company barely sees a slipper. This allows them to concentrate on the all-important marketing metrics — who’s buying, when, where and so on.

It sounds like hard work, but counter intuitively, perhaps, the head office staff work a four-day week and Mr Shah is discussing a four-hour day. Largely freed from a traditional office, his people are more productive, he finds, and more creative too. Coming soon, a range of lifestyle accessories. Just don’t expect a Mahabis pipe.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內容，完成以下自測題目：

1. Which one is not right about Mahabis’ slippers?

A. unusefulness

B. printing endless 3D models

C. online marketing

D. comfortable

2. Who is the founder of the Mahabis?

A. PhilKnight

B. Ankur Shah

C. Francesco·Fiordelli

D. Thomas·J·Watson

3. What is the job of Mr Shah before he had Mahabis?

A. teacher

B. singer

C. criminal barrister

D. singer

4. Which one is not right about the head office of Mahabis?

A. work a four-day week

B. inefficient

C. productive and creative

D. work a four-hour day

[1] 答案 A. unusefulness

解釋：Mahabis拖鞋利用了3D打印技術，有效地使用網(wǎng)絡廣告營銷，并且穿在腳上有著非常舒適的體驗感。

[2] 答案 B. Ankur Shah

解釋：Ankur Shah是拖鞋品牌Mahabis的創(chuàng)始人。

[3] 答案 C. criminal barrister

解釋：Shah先生在創(chuàng)建Mahabis公司前，曾是個刑事律師。

[4] 答案 B. inefficient

解釋：Mahabis總公司的員工一星期只工作四天，每天只工作四個小時，并且有著很高的效率和創(chuàng)造力。