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First there was heroin chic. Then there was poverty chic. And now comes … migrant chic? It sounds too distasteful to contemplate.
先是女主角风，接下来又是饥饿风，接下来又是什么……移民风？听上去太没品味，细思恐极。
Yet last week in Paris both Valentino and Junya Watanabe produced clearly African-influenced collections at a time when immigration from that continent as well as the neighboring Middle East has become the subject of controversy and existential self-questioning throughout Europe. Mr. Watanabe even held his show in the Museum of Immigration History in Paris.
然而正值来自非洲与临近中东的难民成为颇具争议的话题，整个欧洲都在对此做出生死攸关的自省之际，上星期在巴黎，华伦天奴(Valentino)和渡边淳弥(Junya Watanabe)都推出了显然受非洲影响的时装，渡边淳弥的秀干脆就放在了巴黎的移民历史博物馆举行。
Around the same time, Norbert Baksa, a photographer, posted pictures on Instagram of a shoot he had done featuring a model wearing luxury brands against the background of a Hungarian refugee camp.
与此同期，摄影师诺伯特·巴克萨(Norbert Baksa)在Instagram上贴出一张照片，上面是一个身穿奢华品牌的模特，站在匈牙利难民营前面。
All three fashion moments featured beautiful clothing. And all three came in for different kinds of criticism. Both Valentino and Watanabe were castigated for not using enough models of color, and the former was also taken to task for the of its show notes. Mr. Baksa sparked an even angrier response, accused of glamorizing and exploiting a global trauma.
这三个时尚时刻中都有漂亮衣服。三个活动都招来了不同的批评。华伦天奴和渡边淳弥都被批评没有采用更多的非白人模特，还有人批评华伦天奴的走秀说明写得太幼稚。巴克萨引发了更加愤怒的回应，人们抨击他美化并且利用了这场全球性创伤。
We tend to toss around the words “fashion statement” the way we toss them on a T-shirt, but how much of a statement can fashion actually make? Increasingly, such efforts — or indeed, anything that seems to touch on a political or social issue — seem to end badly, exciting a flurry of outrage on social media (some of it legitimate, some less so) that itself becomes a story.
我们总喜欢反复思考“时尚宣言”，还把这些宣言印在T恤上，但时装业究竟能够真正做出多少宣言呢？这样的努力（或者说，任何试图与政治社会问题沾边的事情）似乎愈来愈倾向以糟糕的方式结局，引发社交媒体上乱哄哄的愤怒（有些愤怒是正当的，有些不那么正当），让这件事本身都能成为新闻。
But what is the alternative: not to engage at all?
但如果反过来，和政治、社会一点不沾边，那又会怎么样呢？
As images are shared over various platforms, decontextualized and without explanation but reaching ever more consumers with ever more diverse personal politics, this has becomes a pressing question for the industry, morally and commercially.
在不同平台，很多被分享的图片是没有语境和图片说明的，只是让更多消费者能够见到，他们的政见也是多种多样，这成了时装业目前非常紧迫的问题，不仅是在道德上，而且还影响到商业。
The risk of giving offense, and of motivations being misconstrued, is high. According to a conversation I had with the Valentino designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli before their show, they were trying to challenge their own notion of beauty with beauty from other cultures, to better understand both themselves and the world around them. Fair enough, though it probably would have been better if they hadn’t fallen into the knee-jerk trap of cornrowing their models’ hair.
冒犯别人的风险与动机被误解的风险都很高。我曾经挺听到华伦天奴的设计师玛利亚·格拉齐亚·基乌里(Maria Grazia Chiuri)和皮尔保罗·皮齐奥利(Pierpaolo Piccioli)在走秀之前聊天，他们试图引进其他文化中的美，挑战自身对美的定义，以此更好地理解自身，也更好地理解周围的世界。这很好，但如果他们没有不假思索地把模特的头发编成小辫子，那就更好了。
The problem, said Stefano Tonchi, the editor of W, is that “images are encoded in one place for one purpose and decoded in an entirely different place, with different tools.” But while it is easy to castigate fashion for being tone-deaf, and climb on a politically correct high horse, it is possible that in the end the cause we may hurt is our own.
《W》杂志主编斯蒂法诺·汤奇( Stefano Tonchi)说，问题是“图像在一个地方意味着一个意思，在另一个不同的地方，用不同的工具来解释，就有了不同的意思。”指责时装业荒腔走板，拼命想攀上政治正确的高枝可能太过轻率，有可能到最后伤害的反而是我们自己。
“Fashion isn’t really about clothes,” Franca Sozzani, the editor of Italian Vogue, told me a few years ago when I interviewed her for the Financial Times. “It’s about life.” She was explaining her decision to publish an all-black-model issue in 2008, one featuring a photo shoot on a oil-strewn beach (after the BP disaster) in 2010, another dealing with domestic violence in 2014, and the outcries that followed. “We can’t always be writing about flowers and lace and aquamarine,” she said.
“时装其实并不是关于衣服，而是关于生活，”意大利《Vogue》的总编弗兰卡·索扎尼(Franca Sozzani)几年前曾在采访中对我说，当时我正在为《金融时报》(Financial Times)写一篇文章。她解释自己如何决定在2008年发行了一期全用黑人模特的杂志；2010年英国石油公司漏油事件之后，为何刊登了一幅在一处被石油污染的海滩上拍摄的大照片；2014年的一期杂志为何讨论国内暴力问题，以及其后的强烈抗议。“我们不能总写花朵、蕾丝和海蓝宝石。”
There is a long tradition in the industry of creating beautiful images of expensive finery by situating it in poverty-stricken areas. Recently Marie Claire and W showcased fashion shoots in Havana, the former in its September issue, with a model in Prada, Balmain and Givenchy posed against the backdrop of gritty street life. American Vogue took Kate Moss to Vietnam to photograph her in evening gowns in rice paddies in 1996.
这个行业有一个悠久的传统，就是把昂贵优美的物品放在贫瘠的地方，制造出美丽的图片。最近，《Marie Claire》和《W》都在哈瓦那拍了时装照片，《Marie Claire》把图片用在9月刊，是身穿普拉达、巴尔曼和纪梵希的模特，她们身后是贫困的街景。1996年，美国《Vogue》让凯特·摩斯(Kate Moss)去越南拍照，图中她身穿晚礼服，站在稻田之中。
Designers have likewise been using sartorial semiology as a transformative variable in collections, including Jean Paul Gaultier’s 1993 Hasidic show, Hussein Chalayan’s 1997 chador collection and John Galliano’s “homeless” Dior couture in 2000. Vivienne Westwood and Katharine Hamnett have always overtly used their work to express their convictions.
设计师用缝纫符号学作为时装中变革的语汇，比如让·保罗·高缇耶(Jean Paul Gaultier)1993年的Hasidic系列、侯赛因·卡拉扬(Hussein Chalayan)1997年的罩袍系列，以及约翰·加利亚诺(John Galliano)2000年为迪奥高定推出的“无家可归”系列。薇薇安·韦斯特伍德(Vivienne Westwood)和凯瑟琳·哈玛尼特(Katharine Hamnett)总是公然使用作品来表达她们自己的观点。
Was this a frivolous response to serious problems: cultural appropriation of the worst kind? Or was it an industry’s legitimate effort to deal with real-world problems in the context of its own skill sets? Possibly a bit of both. But each time, there was protest. And each time, the clothes moved the needle of understanding a little bit.
对于那些严肃的问题，这是否是一个轻率的回答，是否是一种最糟糕的文化挪用？又或者是这个行业在自身能力范围之内，对现实世界的问题所作出的正当努力？或者二者都有一点。但是每一次，抗议都会出现。每一次，“衣服”都能促进一点点理解。
Often the best fashion is about transgression. It challenges convention. At its most basic level, that’s how we got women in pants and in miniskirts, all of which horrified plenty of viewers back in the day. It is uncomfortable. Think of Rick Owens’s human backpacks. It takes risks. Otherwise, as Mr. Tonchi said, “like any art form, it becomes propaganda.” Otherwise it risks irrelevance. Otherwise it’s just clothes.
通常，最好的时装都是关于触动禁忌的，它挑战着权威。在最基本的层次，女人是怎样开始穿上裤子和迷你裙，在过去也曾经令不少旁观者大为恐惧。它令人不适。想一想瑞克·欧文斯(Rick Owens)搞的身背活人，它是有风险的。此外，正如汤奇所说，“和任何艺术形式一样，时装业也变成了操控宣传。”否则它就要冒不为人知的风险，否则它就仅仅是衣服而已。
The point of fashion is to reflect the world around it, a world often filled with ugliness and disharmony. Ask any museum curator why costume belongs in the institution, and the answer is that it is historical record: It reflects society at a given moment in time.
时装的关键在于反映周围的世界，一个充满丑陋与不和谐的世界。去问问任何博物馆的馆长，为什么服装属于他们的收藏范畴，他们会说，服装记载着历史：它反映特定时期内的社会风貌。
Indeed, according to Ms. Sozzani, fashion has the ability, and the responsibility, to use its role to highlight the issues; to force them into the public conversation. In this view, not acknowledging the income disparity that is today’s reality (to take one example) is even more bizarre than using a glossy magazine as a conduit to discussion. If a magazine editorial can drive that point home in a unspoken way, why not?
如索扎尼女士所说，时装业确实有这个能力与责任，利用自身扮演的角色，去引发人们对社会问题进行关注，迫使它们进入公众讨论。这样看来，不承认收入差异这个当今的现实（举个例子），甚至比使用时尚杂志作为讨论社会问题的导体还要怪异。如果一本杂志的主编都可以通过无言的方式把这个问题阐释清楚，为什么不呢？
Fashion is often labeled escapism and, the theory goes, should provide that service to those who want to dream of gorgeousness rather than prejudice. In refusing to play that role, designers and photographers are often seen as overstepping their bounds. The assumption is that fashion can’t understand, or doesn’t understand, the implications of what it is doing.
时装通常被人贴上“逃避现实”的标签，而且这个理论还说，它应该为那些华丽的梦想服务，而不是为偏见服务。许多设计师与摄影师拒绝扮演这个角色，他们看上去经常走出自己的边界。这种假定是，时装并不、也没有能力去理解自己所做的事引发什么样的后果。
This is exacerbated when we receive images without attached explanation. Because then it is up to us to decide whether to give the protagonist the benefit of the doubt, or to assume the worst. It’s possible that some designers are after a cheap shock and not a deeper comment. But it’s also worth examining our own rush to judgment and what lies at its core.
当我们看到没有解释的图像时，就更加恶化了这种局面。因为在这种情况下，就需要我们来解释是否对图片事件中的主角进行善意的怀疑，或者报以最大恶意的揣测。有可能有些设计师是想哗众取宠。但我们自己也需要警惕自己急着下论断的冲动，需要对事件的内核进行三思。
This is not to absolve designers and stylists and photographers (and critics) from culpability for their choices. All of us have to be aware of the new global reality in which we operate. Stakeholders need to be considered. Everybody needs to be held accountable for their own mistakes. But one of the benefits of a for-profit industry is that it can be.
这并不是说设计师、造型师、摄影师（以及评论家）就用不着对自己的选择负责了。我们都需要了解我们自己正在应对的全球现实问题，需要考虑利益相关者。所有人都要为自己的错误负责任。但是时装业这个高利润的行业有这样一个好处，就是它确实有能力承担责任。
Otherwise, what are we left with? A future lined in camel coats.
否则我们还剩下什么？未来的一条骆驼毛大衣生产线吗。
Not that there’s anything wrong with camels, you understand. That’s not what I meant at all …
不是说骆驼有什么不对，你懂的，我根本就不是这个意思……
