溪邊椰樓：織霓裳者 （我的譯文習作）

譯者注:

喜歡時尚的網友也許會在其它中文傳媒中看到這篇文章的譯文。本譯文絕無抄襲，純屬自娛。我選這篇譯文一是喜歡吳季剛這個大男孩（他並不像他看起來那麽乖，其實個性還挺執拗的呢!）；二來敬佩他的媽媽為他付出的心血和愛，以及在關鍵轉折點上的堅持；三來是原文作者Daphne Merkin是美國當今知名的小說家，散文家，文學評論家，她的原文文法精湛生動，體現英文之美，想翻譯出相映的中文之美有一定的難度，所以決定挑戰自己！

 

        對於一個剛到而立之年的男士來說，吳季剛 （本人看上去更年輕）琢磨清了不少事情。除了可以憑目視分解出一件衣服的整個剪裁縫製過程，他還清楚地知道自己的個性為人。“我是個時尚學究，” 四月初的一個晚上，我們坐在紐約中區的Lambs Club，他端著酒杯開心地說，“我不時髦,，骨子裏沒一絲兒油脂派基因，” 在台灣出生，溫哥華長大的他繼續說，“你絕對不會見到我在小酒吧裏混跡，生來就不是這樣。我披頭散發過，金發碧眼過，也曾經否認過自己是亞裔。”吳季剛少時先後在麻省和康納狄克讀過兩間寄宿學校，鋪床折被學會自理，少時為玩具公司設計洋娃娃得以初展設計才華。他已出落為一位極富長遠眼光的才俊，對他來說，秩序感至關重要。“雜亂無序不是我的風格。如果我的設計桌是亂的，我就無法工作。”
 

 

        如果把設計師像政客一樣分成自由派和保守派，吳季剛會毫不猶豫地把自己放在極右的保守派裏。他對自己毫不激進的作風相當坦然 - “我的時裝展風格就是統一整齊” - 他也看不慣當下廣泛的傳媒令許多人覺得自己對時尚了如指掌。“‘兩季前的普拉達’不是時裝參考術語。” ，“能在穀歌上找到的資料，我全都不想要。” 吳季剛知道以當下的潮流來說不夠酷，但他的設計理念充份表達出他對早期設計風格的浸淫了解。比如在給晚裝設計免縫打摺的手藝上，他極力推崇 Madame Gres （譯者注一)。

        “如果你想要一件上好的T恤，別來找我。” 2006年吳季剛從帕森設計學院（譯者注二)畢業，即首次推出他極具女性化精致剪裁的時裝係列。至今，他的審美理念一直走的是這種無比專精和坦然的極品路線。吳季剛公司的籌資來源於他在洋娃娃玩具製造公司Interity Toys任職創意總監所得，他的父母擁有一間食品及飼料生產出口公司，他們一直為吳季剛提供著財政援助和經營路線方麵的建議。（他說他的媽媽從沒有一次錯過他的時裝展。）

        吳季剛與眾不同的地方，在於他自事業起始從未嚐試過取悅消費大眾，相反地，他從一開始就定格了完整的賣點對象，就像他描述的，“一種特殊的強勢女人，堅強、自信，還帶著一種威嚴。”吳季剛不像同齡的年輕設計師，對自己的設計過程和對自己影響深遠的大師們 - Norman Norell, Charles James 以及 Yves Saint Laurent 他守口如瓶，僅憑出展的衣飾表現反簡約路線，（“我一定會用羽毛，珠串或是波卡點做飾物”）其作品透著令人驚詫的早熟和精致。除了擁有一群忠實的貴富女客戶外，吳季剛還帶著一幫他稱為“吳家女”的年輕女巨星 - Rachel Weisz, Jaime King, Michelle Williams, Emma Stone 和 Julianne Moore - 其中為首的，就是他的拍檔，相片中的佳人Diane Kruger.

        還是幾年前，聞知吳季剛的僅限於時裝界的行內人和Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Saks, 倫敦的 Browns 等歐美一些最高檔的百貨公司。2009年當米歇爾穿著他設計的童話水晶鑲綴晚裝出席就職典禮舞會的時候，一切發生了變化。吳季剛名聲驟起，而他在舞會當晚跟朋友在紐約的公寓小聚，坐在電視前對自己的晚裝設計被選中毫不知情，更為這個努力上進的年輕移民的夢幻成功故事添加了格外的戲劇成份。

        僅僅幾分鍾之內，產品代言和實景劇的邀約紛遝而至。要是換了其他人，可能就暈了。可是我越跟吳季剛呆得久，越覺得他的不尋常之處：他沒有那種極度進取極具創意的人常帶的極度自我膨脹。“不了解我的人覺得我的事業是一條晚裝捧起來的，這並沒改變我的工作態度和審美觀，這隻改變了人們怎麽看我，我從來沒有利用過這種看法去盈利。” 他毫不爭拗地說，“我希望別人了解我的作品，而不是我本人，我不覺得自己是多麽有意思。當時馬上就有書約請我寫自傳。” 他用那種不可置信的眼神盯著我，似乎在看是否我也認同此事的愚蠢可笑之處。“我沒法下筆 - 我才剛展開第一章，還未成形，最多也隻能算是一片散文，故事的結尾我還不知道。” 說完，好像要表示自己並不是假清高似地，他加了一句，“當然了，如果現在有人請我去做香水....”

        這段時間以來，除了忙於設計2013年米歇爾的第二套晚裝和參與其它品牌合作項目（他和蘭金合作的化妝品係列將於九月份推出），他仍將眼光放在長遠。今天三月的一個下午我去吳季剛的展廳見他，展廳很大（1千平米），一眾30多員工，仍是秩序井然，這裏擺放著他最新一季的服裝和令我垂涎的鞋子和手袋。他掃過一排排的秋裝，無論是紅黑組合的雪紡珠邊褶紗裙，一條鴕鳥毛腰帶，一件黑色亮綢鑲狐立領風衣，還是一條月白色羊毛合身直腿褲，我驚歎他對每一件作品所傾注的精工細做的心血。很多的露背裝和長褶裙的緊身塑形襯裏采用幾乎絕跡的傳統高級禮服的做法，內外都透著無比的華貴。他這種近乎神經質的企求精美在近年來有所放鬆，他自己也承認，今年的秋裝係列裏就增添了“一種華麗，不是 Liberace （譯者注三) 式的絢麗，而是性感的俏麗。” 他說他夢想著能在一間糕餅店打工，有時壓力和外界的期望令他身心疲憊，“好多次，我都覺得‘我做不下去了’.”

        也許吧，可是我深信吳季剛會秉持著他那種內斂自持的作風繼續下去，為時尚界的翹楚編織霓裳。“我的客戶的品味都很刁鑽，她們不是因為有名人買我的衣服才來光顧。”他帶著一絲自豪地說。

 

 

Madame Gres 譯者注一：由於地域文化的差異關係,文中涉及時裝界大師和品牌的地方一律采用英文原文，不予翻譯。

從帕森設計學院   譯者注二：其實吳季剛在快畢業是忙於準備首場時裝表演，無暇顧及畢業論文，並未正式從學校畢業。吳成名後，帕森設計學院公開向外認可他是本校的畢業生
Liberace 譯者注三：美國五六十年代著名鋼琴家，娛樂大師，演員。其表演以絢麗多彩的服裝和舞台效果著稱。他是意大利後裔，他的藝名發音為 Liber-Ah-Chee。 1987年死於愛滋病誘發的疾病。

 

您可以在以下鏈接閱讀英文原文：http://www.elle.com/fashion/designers/jason-wu-fashion-profile?click=main_sr 

 

我為您附上英文原文如下：

For a guy who’s just 30, Jason Wu (who looks even younger in person) has figured out an impressive number of things already. Aside from being able to eyeball any item of clothing and deconstruct how it was made, he knows who he is—“I’m a fashion nerd,” he admits happily over drinks at the Lambs Club in New York City’s midtown one evening in early April—and who he is not: “I’m not trendy. I don’t have a grunge bone in me.” The Taiwan native (he was raised in Vancouver) goes on to clarify: “You won’t see me in a dive bar. It’s not me. I went through my crazy-hair phase and my I’m-not-Asian phase. I had blue eyes and blond hair for a while.” Wu, who, by his own admission, always made his bed at boarding school (one in Massachusetts; one in Connecticut) and got his designing chops as a boy by creating clothes for dolls, has grown into an unnervingly farsighted young man for whom a sense of control is crucial. “Chaos is not for me,” he observes. “If my desk is cluttered, I can’t work.”

 

If fashion designers, like politicians, can be divided into liberals and conservatives, Wu would definitely put himself on the right end of the spectrum. He makes no apologies for not being a radical—“In my shows, there’s always been a uniformity and neatness”—and disapproves of the instant access that the Internet has brought, enabling people to think they know more about fashion than they really do. “ ‘Two-seasons-ago Prada’ is not a reference,” he states emphatically. “If you can google it, I don’t want it.” Though Wu knows it isn’t “cool” these days, his own approach to design is steeped in references to an earlier period. He invokes Madame Grès, for instance, when explaining how he drapes the pleats on his dresses freehand.

 

This ultrafocused and unapologetically upmarket sensibility—“If you’re looking for a great white T-shirt, don’t come to me”—has informed Wu’s aesthetic since, fresh out of the Parsons school of design, he showed his first collection of supremely feminine and meticulously crafted clothes in 2006. The company was and is financed with money from Wu’s ongoing position as creative director of Integrity Toys, which makes dolls. His parents, who run a company that produces and exports food products and industrial animal feed, have also provided financial assistance as well as business advice. (His mother, he points out, has never missed a show.)

 

What was different about Wu right from the start is that he didn’t seem to be experimenting off the consumer’s back; instead, he arrived with a fully formed conception of who wanted his designs—“a certain kind of power woman,” as he describes it, “a strong, confident woman with a certain ‘strictness.’ ” Unlike other young designers, he kept his process—and his influences: Norman Norell, Charles James, Yves Saint Laurent—to himself, sending clothes down the runway that expressed an antiminimalist vision (“I always have a feather or beading or polka dot of some sort”) marked by an almost eerily precocious brio and polish. Aside from his core clientele of affluent and stylish women, there is a neon-lit group he calls “the Wu girls,” including Rachel Weisz, Jaime King, Michelle Williams, Emma Stone, and Julianne Moore—and his partner in this portrait, the ravishing Diane Kruger.

 

Still, only a few years ago Wu was a name known mostly to industry insiders and the high-end retailers who carried him at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Saks, Browns in London. All that changed, of course, when Michelle Obama stepped in front of the cameras at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball in 2009 wearing a crystal-studded fairy tale of a gown he created. The impact on his visibility was enormous; the story of his sitting in front of his TV with a few close friends in his midtown apartment on inauguration night, unaware that his was the dress that had been chosen, added to the built-in drama of a young immigrant whose aspirations and hard work led to undreamed-of success.

 

Within literally a matter of minutes, the offers—for everything from product endorsements to reality shows—came pouring in. It might have turned someone else’s head, but what’s remarkable about Wu, I discover the more I spend time with him, is how he lacks the egotism one associates with driven, creative types. “People who don’t know me think my career is made of one dress. It didn’t change my work ethic or my aesthetic, but it changed how other people perceived me. I never capitalized on it,” he says, sounding not the least bit defensive. “I want to be known for my work. I don’t want to be known for me; I don’t think I am that interesting. I was offered a book deal right away.” He pauses and looks at me incredulously, to see if I’ve registered the folly of that. “I’m not a writer—I’m still on my first chapter. I’m an article right now; I’m an essay at best. I don’t know how my story ends.” And then, to make clear that he’s not a purist sitting on high, he adds, “Now, if someone had offered me a fragrance deal….”

 

These days, with a second custom inaugural dress for Michelle Obama, circa 2013, under his belt as well as a slew of new partnerships and licensing arrangements (a collaboration on a makeup collection with Lancôme is due in September), Wu still keeps his eye firmly on the road ahead. One afternoon in March, I meet him at his large (10,000 square feet) showroom, wholly unfrantic despite a staff of 30, which houses his latest season of clothes as well as his mouthwatering collection of shoes and bags. As Wu sifts through a rack of his fall designs, I’m struck by the exacting workmanship that goes into everything he creates, whether a red-and-black chiffon pleated dress with beaded trim, an ostrich feather belt, a black satin funnel-neck trench coat with fox pockets, or a pair of perfectly cut bone-white wool stovepipe pants. Many of the halter and flounce dresses are lined with corsetry, in the way of bygone haute couture, and there is a general sense of inside-out luxury. His refined, just this side of prissy approach has loosened up in recent years, and even he admits to “a certain flamboyance—not Liberace, but sexy” in his fall collection. He says he dreams of working in a pastry shop and admits to sometimes faltering under the pressure and expectation. “So many times,” he says, “I’ve felt ‘I can’t do this.’ ”

 

Perhaps, but I have every confidence that Wu will continue, in his reserved and exquisitely attuned way, to make clothes for a particular kind of connoisseur of fashion. “The women who buy my clothes have discerning taste,” he says, with quiet pride. “My customer isn’t buying my clothes because famous people wear them.”