接送孩子的着装礼仪
During the recent women's wear shows I found myself on a bench at Tao Comme des Garçons (Tao being one of the young labels that is being developed under the CdG umbrella) sandwiched between Ikram Goldman, the eponymous owner of a store in Chicago, and Tricia Jones, editor of special projects for ID magazine. All of us looked with great desire at the shoes the models were wearing and whispered our shared product lust. The footwear in question were motorcycle boots wound round and round with studded leather chains at the ankle, and they were kind of cool and kind of fancy and kind of mad (in both meanings of the word), all at the same time.最近几场女装秀期间，我坐在Tao Comme des Garçons（Tao是CdG品牌旗下正在主推的年轻品牌之一）秀场的板凳上，两边分别是芝加哥拥有同名商店的伊克拉姆•戈德曼和ID杂志特别专题编辑特里西亚•琼斯。我们三个人满怀垂涎之意望着台上模特们穿着的鞋子，低声分享着对这件商品共有的欲望。我们看上的是双摩托车靴，踝部绕着一圈又一圈镶有柳钉的皮链。它们看上去有点酷、有点梦幻、有点疯狂（或是愚蠢），而且是三种感觉同时兼备。
“I'm not sure what my kids would say, though, if I showed up with them on my feet at school,” I said, picturing the looks of horror on the faces of my seven- and nine-year-old daughters. Sometimes they just don't want to know about any latent biker fantasies a parent might have. My son, who is four, on the other hand, would just think the boots were neat. He's too young to understand sartorial subtext – though when I occasionally attempt to wear a Rick Owens harem-pant-style knee-length playsuit, which is kind of like the hippest LBD, even he looks a bit embarrassed and tells me to change my clothes.
“不过，如果我穿着它们出现在学校里，我不能确定我的孩子们会怎么说，”我说到，同时在脑海里勾画我那两个7岁和9岁的女儿脸上可能出现的惊恐表情。有时她们就是不想知道父母可能潜藏已久的摩托车手情结。而我那4岁的儿子只会认为这双靴子很不错。他还太小，无法理解着装的潜台词——尽管当我偶尔试着穿上一套瑞克•欧文斯伊斯兰哈伦裤风格的及膝运动装时（有点像最具嬉皮精神的小黑裙），连他也会面露尴尬之情并让我换件衣服。
“I used to show up at school in my flight suit,” said Jones, whose children are now grown up. “We also had a car that we patched with rust-resistant paint whenever it got a scratch. The children used to make me park around the corner.”
“过去我常常穿着我的飞行服出现在学校里，”琼斯说道，她的孩子现在都长大了。“我们还曾经有一辆汽车，一旦车身出现划痕，我们就会用一层防锈漆把它们盖住。孩子们通常会让我把车停在拐角处。”
Dressing for the school run is, I have discovered, more fraught than I ever would have imagined. To be honest, I had never imagined it as an issue at all. Entering the workforce I had many male friends who felt wearing suits was akin to donning a disguise, and pre-and-post office hours immediately changed into their “real” clothes, but I have always worn pretty much the same clothes to work and play. Or at least I did. Until I looked at them through the eyes of my children, and my children's friends.
我发现，接送孩子时的着装礼仪远比我想象的更令人发愁。坦白说，过去我从不认为这是个问题。进入工作岗位时，我身边有许多男性朋友觉得穿西装就像是披上了一层伪装，上班前和下班后会迅速换回他们“真正”的衣服。但我上班和平时消遣所穿的衣服基本上没有多少差别。或者说至少我过去如此，直到我用孩子以及他们朋友的眼光来看待这些衣服。
And I am not the only one: consider recent newspaper commentary about Victoria Beckham's “over the top” appearance at her children's school in Los Angeles in head-to-toe leather, including a shoulder-padded Balmain jacket and studded Dsquared trousers; or the praise by madeformums.com of Claudia Schiffer's and Elle Macpherson's “school run chic” (perfectly fitting jeans, sweaters, and flats, with scarves artfully flung around their necks). According to your outfits, your parental fitness will be judged.
而且我不是唯一这么想的人：仔细看看最近报纸上对维多利亚•贝克汉姆(Victoria Beckham)出现在洛杉矶她孩子的学校时那身“夸张”装束的评论吧。她从头到脚一身皮装，其中包括一件垫肩的Balmain皮夹克，以及镶满柳钉的Dsquared皮裤；或是madeformums.com网站对克劳迪亚•席弗和埃莉•麦克弗森“接送孩子时髦装束”（完美合身的牛仔裤、套头衫、平底鞋、脖子上优雅随意的围巾）的赞美之词。人们会根据你的衣着来判断你是不是称职的父母。
After all, there are few places that can make someone seem as glaringly out of place as the school gates. There, in a sea of parents or babysitters clad, almost entirely (in my case at least), in jeans or suits or occasionally yoga gear, appearing in a quasi-skating dress and platform wedges, both of which constitute a sort of work uniform for me, is to feel a bit of a freak. It is to invite glances and speculation.
毕竟，很少有什么地方会像学校大门口那样让光艳照人的你看起来有点格格不入。学校门口接送孩子的父母或是保姆几乎全都（至少在我的亲身经历中如此）穿着牛仔服或是西装，有时也会穿瑜伽服，在这片人海之中，穿着类似滑冰服的短裙或是厚底鞋（这对我来说都算是日常工作装束）亮相都会觉得有点怪诞，不免会引起旁人的异样眼光和猜测。
“What do you do that you dress like that?” I have been asked more than once, and once a woman came up to me on the street after pick-up to say hi and introduce herself – we had a mutual friend – and said she had figured out who I was because of my handbag.
“你是做什么工作的，为何穿成这样？”不止一次有人这样问我。一次，在我接完孩子后，一个女人走上前来跟我打招呼并自我介绍——原来我们有一个共同的朋友——她说她是因为我的手提包才认出我是谁的。
Now, though I love my handbag (for the record, a big Louis Vuitton tote designed by Takashi Murakami for his show at the Brooklyn Museum that is weather-proof and capacious enough to house both notebooks and lunch boxes), and I know I natter on about the message of clothes all the time, I have to say I found the fact that my bag revealed so much about me a bit of a shock.
好吧，尽管我很喜欢我的手提包（借此机会我郑重声明，村上隆为他在布鲁克林博物馆的个展设计的大号路易威登手提包既防水，容积又大得足以同时放下笔记本和午餐盒），而且我也知道自己一直喋喋不休地谈论服装所传达的信息，但是我不得不说，当我得知手提包能够泄露出那么多关于我的信息时，还是有点震惊。
I am sure there are some schools and places where this would not be true – where my handbag would just be one among a sea of similar handbags – but both the educational establishment in London my kids used to go to and the one in Brooklyn that they currently attend are full of parents whose professions tend to the artsy, self-employed, dress-code-free end of the spectrum, and thus the majority of the ladies don't do lunch but do do Ashtanga. And here's the thing: at school you're not representing you, you're representing your children – and most children find their parents embarrassing enough without having to worry about their clothes marking them out as Other.
我可以肯定，在有些学校、有些地方，这些都不会成立——在那里我的手提包不过是相互类似的包山包海中的一个——但不管是我的孩子们曾经在伦敦就读的学校，还是如今在布鲁克林的学校，都有许多家长的职业向艺术家气质、自营、没有着装要求的那一端倾斜。因此大多数女士不吃午餐，但会练Ashtanga瑜伽。此外还有一点：在学校，你代表的不是你自己，而是你的孩子——而大多数孩子在担心父母的着装会给自己贴上异类的标签之前，就已经觉得他们足够令人难堪了。
Indeed, not long ago I had another conversation with a fashion world mother who lives in London, about the problem of her spike-heeled Giuseppe Zanotti boots. “I wore them once when I dropped the kids off, and got my heel stuck in the grate,” she sighed. “I felt like I had a giant sign over my head saying, ‘fashion victim'. It was awful. Now I keep them in my bag until I get out of the area.”
事实上，不久之前，我与另一位在时尚界工作、住在伦敦的母亲交谈，话题是她那双后跟又尖又高的Giuseppe Zanotti长靴。“有一次我穿着它们去送孩子上学，结果后跟卡在了下水道的格栅中，”她叹了口气。“我的感觉就好像额头上贴了个巨大的标识，上面写着‘时尚的受害者'。那感觉糟透了。现在我把那双靴子放在包里，直到离开学校才穿上。”
So, despite the fact that I know assimilation may be the wrong message to send to my children – that I should stand up for being different, dressing like an individual, and all the stuff I tell them when we have long talks – I have taken my cues from Mmes Schiffer and Macpherson and adapted. I have a costume for the school run that involves jeans, sneakers, T-shirts and wool jackets, and in it I play the role of Mum, even if 10 minutes later I, like Superman, throw off my Clark Kent camouflage and become Superfashionista. Well, OK, not exactly Superfashionista, but someone in YSL power platforms. The question is, when it comes time to trick-or-treat, which pair of shoes do I wear?
因此，尽管我知道接受被社会同化不是我应该向孩子们传递的正确信息——我应该支持与众不同、穿出个人风格、以及我和他们促膝长谈时告诉他们的一切道理——但是我已经从席弗和麦克弗森女士那里获得了暗示，并准备加以应用。我有一套接送孩子的专门装束——牛仔裤、运动鞋、体恤衫与羊毛外套——穿着它们我扮演的是妈妈的角色，哪怕10分钟后我会像超人那样，脱掉克拉克•肯特的伪装，变成一个超级时尚迷。问题是，万圣节玩“不给糖就捣蛋”时，我该穿哪双鞋呢？
1、没有阳光的白日如同黑夜。(快乐生活每一天)
A day without sunshine is like night.
2、换句话说，五指亦有不同。(大千世界，无奇不有。宽容心对待)
On the other hand, you have different fingers.
3、百分之四十二点七的数据是现场编造的。
42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
4、百分之九十九的律师是毁坏律师界名声的大老鼠。(律师界就是一锅老鼠汤)
99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5、永远记住：你认识的人中定会有一半居于平均线以下。(总有人处于低端)
Remember, half the people you know are below average.
6、最后笑的人思维最慢。(最后笑的人不一定因为他是强人，也许还有其他原因)
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
7、绝望仅仅是没有激情的愤怒。
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
8、早起的鸟儿或许有虫吃，不过第二只老鼠才会得到夹子中的奶酪。(韬光养晦，永不出头)
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap.
9、养育细菌吧。他们是某些人唯有的培养基(修养、文化)(英语里culture一词 也有文化修养和细菌培养基的意思，这里一语双关)。(极端没教养、吝啬的代名词)
Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have.
10、问心无愧也许是坏记性的表现。
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
11、改变无可避免，自动贩卖机出来的货物除外。
Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
12、假如你认为没有人关心你，试试拖欠一下应付款。(意见真的不错喔)
If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.
13、有多少人相信特异致动？举起我的手来。
How many of you believe in psycho-kinesis? Raise my hand.
14、好吧，那么黑暗的速度呢？(光速与“黑速”到底谁会更大一点呢)
OK, so what's the speed of dark?
15、当所有东西都朝你运动而来，那说明你走错了道。(众人独醒我独醉)
When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
16、勤奋工作会在远期得到回报，而懒惰现期就会有所收获。
Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
17、假如没有酒鬼的话大海要深多少啊！
How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?
18、鹰翔九天，但是鼬鼠从不会卷入飞机引擎。
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
19、假如你两次被吓得半死，会发生什么事呢？
What happens if you get scared half to death, twice?
20、通灵之人为什么还要问你的姓名呢？
Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
21、每个老年人心里都会有一个年轻人在问：“怎么会发生这档子破事？”
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering, "What the hell happened?"
22、只需记住——假如这个世界不是一张网，我们都会掉落。
Just remember -- if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
23、光速快于音速。这就是为什么你在听到他人的发言后才会意识到他们的存在。
Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
24、生活并不太像一盒巧克力。它更像一罐墨西哥辣椒。
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos.
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