那些随意的拖鞋是如何流行起来的？
从前被人们不屑一顾的拖鞋出街，如今成了潮人的心头好。英国品牌mahabis足以改变你对传统拖鞋的看法，鞋底、鞋垫和鞋跟可拼接替换，在家时穿着内衬——出门时只需套个鞋底。
测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：
hipster 赶时髦的人[hɪpstə]
puffing 使膨胀；吹起[pufiŋ]
vaporizer 蒸发器['veipəraizə(r)]
contraption 奇妙的装置；精巧的设计[kən'træpʃ(ə)n]
relentless 不间断的[rɪ'lentlɪs]
tramping 踩['træmpiŋ]
barrister 律师；有资格出席高等法庭并辩护的）专门律师['bærɪstə]
tartan 格子呢的['tɑːt(ə)n]
elude 逃避，躲避[ɪ'l(j)uːd]
阅读马上开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用的时间，对照下方的参考值就可以评估出您的英文阅读水平。
如果您读完全文用时为： 那么，您的阅读速度相当于 每分钟阅读的英文单词数
4分52秒 母语为英语者的朗读速度 140
2分24秒 母语为英语的中学生的阅读速度 250
1分9秒 母语为英语的大学生的阅读速度 350
0分6秒 母语为英语的速读高手 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.
请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：
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
解释：Mahabis拖鞋利用了3D打印技术，有效地使用网络广告营销，并且穿在脚上有着非常舒适的体验感。
[2] 答案 B. Ankur Shah
解释：Ankur Shah是拖鞋品牌Mahabis的创始人。
[3] 答案 C. criminal barrister
解释：Shah先生在创建Mahabis公司前，曾是个刑事律师。
[4] 答案 B. inefficient
解释：Mahabis总公司的员工一星期只工作四天，每天只工作四个小时，并且有着很高的效率和创造力。
