I was around 10 when one day, I discovered a box of my father's old things. In it, under a bunch of his college textbooks, was a pair of black corduroy bell-bottom pants. These pants were awful -- musty and moth-eaten. And of course, I fell in love with them. I'd never seen anything like them. Until that day, all I'd ever known and worn was my school uniform, which, in fact, I was pretty grateful for, because from quite a young age, I'd realized I was somewhat different. I'd never been one of the boys my age; terrible at sports, possibly the unmanliest little boy ever.
Imao sam oko deset godina kada sam jednog dana pronašao kutiju s očevim starim stvarima. U njoj su se, ispod hrpe studentskih knjiga, našle i jedne crne trapez hlače od samta. Hlače su bile grozne, ustajale i izjedene moljcima. Naravno, zaljubio sam se u njih. Nikada nisam vidio ništa poput njih. Do tog dana, jedino za što sam znao i nosio bila je moja školska odora, na kojoj sam, zapravo, bio jako zahvalan, budući da sam od malih nogu shvaćao da sam nekako drugačiji. Nikada nisam bio poput dječaka mog uzrasta, bio sam grozan u sportu, vjerojatno najmanje muževan dječak ikada.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I was bullied quite a bit. And so, I figured that to survive I would be invisible, and the uniform helped me to seem no different from any other child.
Dosta su me maltretirali. Stoga sam shvatio, da bih preživio, trebao sam biti nevidljiv, a odora mi je pomogla da se ne razlikujem od druge djece.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Well, almost. This became my daily prayer: "God, please make me just like everybody else." I think this went straight to God's voicemail, though.
Pa, gotovo da je bilo tako. Svakodnevno sam se molio: "Bože, učini da budem kao i svi ostali." Mislim da je molitva otišla ravno u božju govornu poštu.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And eventually, it became pretty clear that I was not growing up to be the son that my father always wanted. Sorry, Dad.
S vremenom je postalo jasno da neću biti sin kakvog je moj otac oduvijek želio. Oprosti, tata.
No, I was not going to magically change. And over time, I grew less and less sure that I actually wanted to. Therefore, the day those black corduroy bell-bottom pants came into my life, something happened. I didn't see pants; I saw opportunity. The very next day, I had to wear them to school, come what may. And once I pulled on those god-awful pants and belted them tight, almost instantly, I developed what can only be called a swagger.
Bio sam svjestan da me nikakva čarolija neće promijeniti. S vremenom sam se sve manje htio mijenjati. Kada su crne trapezice od samta ušle u moj život, nešto se dogodilo. Nisam vidio hlače. Vidio sam priliku. Već sam ih sljedećeg dana htio odjenuti za školu, kud puklo da puklo. Kada sam navukao te užasne hlače i stisnuo remen, gotovo sam se isti tren počeo praviti važan.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
All the way to school, and then all the way back because I was sent home at once --
Na putu do škole i natrag, budući da su me odmah poslali kući.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I transformed into a little brown rock star.
Preobrazio sam se u malu smeđu rock zvijezdu.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I finally didn't care anymore that I could not conform. That day, I was suddenly celebrating it. That day, instead of being invisible, I chose to be looked at, just by wearing something different. That day, I discovered the power of what we wear. That day, I discovered the power of fashion, and I've been in love with it ever since.
Konačno mi više nije bilo bitno što sam drugačiji. Tog sam dana odjednom to slavio. Tog dana, umjesto neprimjetan, odabrao sam biti uočljiv jednostavnim nošenjem nečeg drugačijeg. Tog sam dana otkrio moć onoga što nosimo. Otkrio sam moć mode i zaljubio se u nju.
Fashion can communicate our differences to the world for us. And with this simple act of truth, I realized that these differences -- they stopped being our shame. They became our expressions, expressions of our very unique identities. And we should express ourselves, wear what we want. What's the worst that could happen? The fashion police are going to get you for being so last season?
Moda svijetu može prenijeti naše različitosti, umjesto nas. I uz ovaj jednostavan čin iskrenosti, shvatio sam da su te različitosti prestale biti naša sramota. Postale su naš izričaj, odraz naših jedinstvenih identiteta. Trebamo se izražavati, nositi što želimo. Što je najgore što se može dogoditi? Uhvatit će vas modna policija jer nosite prošlogodišnju kolekciju?
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Yeah. Well, unless the fashion police meant something entirely different. Nobel Prize laureate Malala survived Taliban extremists in October 2012. However, in October 2017, she faced a different enemy, when online trolls viciously attacked the photograph that showed the 20-year-old wearing jeans that day. The comments, the hatred she received, ranged from "How long before the scarf comes off?" to, and I quote, "That's the reason the bullet directly targeted her head a long time ago." Now, when most of us decide to wear a pair of jeans someplace like New York, London, Milan, Paris, we possibly don't stop to think that it's a privilege; something that somewhere else can have consequences, something that can one day be taken away from us.
Da. Osim ako modna policija ne predstavlja nešto sasvim drugo. Malala, dobitnica Nobelove nagrade, preživjela je talibanske ekstremiste u listopadu 2012. godine. Međutim, u listopadu 2017. godine, suočila se s drugačijim neprijateljem, kada su je internetski zlobnici napali zbog fotografije na kojoj 20-godišnjakinja nosi traperice. Komentari, mržnja upućena prema njoj, od "Koliko dugo dok ne skine maramu?" do, citiram, "Zbog ovoga je metak ciljao ravno u njenu glavu prije dugo vremena." Danas, kada većina nas odluči nositi traperice u New Yorku, Londonu, Milanu, Parizu, vjerojatno ni ne pomislimo da je to privilegija, koja negdje drugdje može imati posljedice, koja nam jednog dana može biti oduzeta.
My grandmother was a woman who took extraordinary pleasure in dressing up. Her fashion was colorful. And the color she loved to wear so much was possibly the only thing that was truly about her, the one thing she had agency over, because like most other women of her generation in India, she'd never been allowed to exist beyond what was dictated by custom and tradition. She'd been married at 17, and after 65 years of marriage, when my grandfather died suddenly one day, her loss was unbearable. But that day, she was going to lose something else as well, the one joy she had: to wear color. In India, according to custom, when a Hindu woman becomes a widow, all she's allowed to wear is white from the day of the death of her husband. No one made my grandmother wear white. However, every woman she'd known who had outlived her husband, including her mother, had done it. This oppression was so internalized, so deep-rooted, that she herself refused a choice. She passed away this year, and until the day she died, she continued to wear only white.
Moja je baka bila žena koja je izuzetno uživala u odijevanju. Njezina je moda bila šarena. Boje, koje je toliko voljela nositi, vjerojatno su bile jedina prava, istinska stvar o njoj samoj, jedino nad čime je imala moć, jer, poput mnogih žena njezine generacije u Indiji, nije joj bilo dopušteno biti iznad pravila koja su određivali običaji i tradicija. Udala se sa 17 godina i nakon 65 godina braka, kada je djed jednog dana iznenada preminuo, njezin je gubitak bio nepodnošljiv. No, tog je dana izgubila još nešto, svoju jedinu radost, nošenje boja. U Indiji, prema običajima, kada Hindu žena postane udovica, smije nositi jedino bijelu boju od dana kada izgubi supruga. Moju baku nitko nije natjerao da nosi bijelo. Međutim, sve žene koje je poznavala i koje su nadživjele svoje muževe, uključujući njezinu majku, učinile su to. Represija je bila toliko ukorijenjena, toliko duboko usađena, da je i ona sama odbila mogućnost odabira. Preminula je ove godine, i do svoje smrti nastavila je nositi jedino bijelo.
I have a photograph with her from earlier, happier times. In it, you can't really see what she's wearing -- the photo is in black and white. However, from the way she's smiling in it, you just know she's wearing color. This is also what fashion can do. It has the power to fill us with joy, the joy of freedom to choose for ourselves how we want to look, how we want to live -- a freedom worth fighting for. And fighting for freedom, protest, comes in many forms.
Imam fotografiju s njom, iz sretnijih dana. Na njoj ne možete vidjeti što nosi jer je fotografija crno-bijela. Međutim, prema njezinom osmijehu jednostavno znate da nosi boje. Moda može učiniti i to. Ima moć ispuniti nas veseljem, radošću slobode izbora kako želimo izgledati, kako želimo živjeti, slobodom za koju se vrijedi boriti. Borba za slobodu, prosvjed, dolazi u mnogo oblika.
Widows in India like my grandmother, thousands of them, live in a city called Vrindavan. And so, it's been a sea of white for centuries. However, only as recently as 2013, the widows of Vrindavan have started to celebrate Holi, the Indian festival of color, which they are prohibited from participating in. On this one day in March, these women take the traditional colored powder of the festival and color each other. With every handful of the powder they throw into the air, their white saris slowly start to suffuse with color. And they don't stop until they're completely covered in every hue of the rainbow that's forbidden to them. The color washes off the next day, however, for that moment in time, it's their beautiful disruption. This disruption, any kind of dissonance, can be the first gauntlet we throw down in a battle against oppression. And fashion -- it can create visual disruption for us -- on us, literally.
Udovice u Indiji, poput moje bake, na tisuće njih, žive u gradu Vrindavanu. I kao takav, stoljećima izgleda poput bijelog mora. Međutim, nedavno, od 2013. godine, udovice u Vrindavanu počele su slaviti Holi, indijski festival boja, na kojem im je zabranjeno sudjelovati. Tijekom jednog dana u ožujku, ove žene uzimaju tradicionalni šareni festivalski prah i boje jedna drugu. Sa svakom šakom praha bačenog u zrak, njihovi bijeli sariji polako bivaju prekriveni bojom. I ne prestaju dok nisu potpuno prekrivene svakom nijansom duginih boja koje su im zabranjene. Boja se ispere sljedećeg dana, ali tog trenutka, one mogu uživati u buntu. Taj bunt, bilo koja vrsta neslaganja, može biti prvi korak u našoj borbi protiv represije. Moda nam omogućuje izraziti vizualni bunt, na nama, doslovce.
Lessons of defiance have always been taught by fashion's great revolutionaries: its designers. Jean Paul Gaultier taught us that women can be kings. Thom Browne -- he taught us that men can wear heels. And Alexander McQueen, in his spring 1999 show, had two giant robotic arms in the middle of his runway. And as the model, Shalom Harlow began to spin in between them, these two giant arms -- furtively at first and then furiously, began to spray color onto her. McQueen, thus, before he took his own life, taught us that this body of ours is a canvas, a canvas we get to paint however we want.
Lekcije o prkosu oduvijek su nam davali veliki modni revolucionari: dizajneri. Jean Paul Gaultier naučio nas je da žene mogu biti kraljevi. Thom Browne naučio nas je da muškarci mogu nositi pete. Alexander McQueen, na predstavljanju svoje proljetne kolekcije 1999. godine, nasred piste postavio je dvije ogromne robotske ruke. Kad se model, Shalom Harlow, počela vrtjeti između njih, ove divovske ruke prvo kriomice, a zatim mahnito, počele su po njoj prskati boju. Tako nas je McQueen, prije nego si je oduzeo život, naučio da je naše tijelo platno po kojemu možemo slikati kako mi želimo.
Somebody who loved this world of fashion was Karar Nushi. He was a student and actor from Iraq. He loved his vibrant, eclectic clothes. However, he soon started receiving death threats for how he looked. He remained unfazed. He remained fabulous, until July 2017, when Karar was discovered dead on a busy street in Baghdad. He'd been kidnapped. He'd been tortured. And eyewitnesses say that his body showed multiple wounds. Stab wounds.
Svijet mode volio je i Karar Nushi. On je bio student i glumac iz Iraka. Volio je svoj živopisan stil odijevanja. Međutim, uskoro je zbog svog izgleda počeo primati prijetnje smrću. Ostao je smiren. Ostao je divan, do srpnja 2017. godine, kada su ga pronašli mrtvog na prometnoj ulici Bagdada. Oteli su ga. Mučili su ga. Očevici kažu da mu je na tijelu pronađeno više rana. Rana od uboda.
Two thousand miles away in Peshawar, Pakistani transgender activist Alisha was shot multiple times in May 2016. She was taken to the hospital, but because she dressed in women's clothing, she was refused access to either the men's or the women's wards. What we choose to wear can sometimes be literally life and death. And even in death, we sometimes don't get to choose. Alisha died that day and then was buried as a man.
Tri tisuće kilometara dalje, u Peshawaru, pakistansku transrodnu aktivisticu Alishu upucali su nekoliko puta u svibnju 2016. Odvezena je u bolnicu, ali zato što se odijevala u žensku odjeću odbijen joj je pristup i muškom i ženskom bolničkom odjelu. Što odabiremo nositi ponekad doslovce znači život ili smrt. Ponekad nam čak ni u smrti nije pružena mogućnost odabira. Alisha je umrla toga dana i pokopana je kao muškarac.
What kind of world is this? Well, it's one in which it's natural to be afraid, to be frightened of this surveillance, this violence against our bodies and what we wear on them. However, the greater fear is that once we surrender, blend in and begin to disappear one after the other, the more normal this false conformity will look, the less shocking this oppression will feel.
Kakav je ovo svijet? Svijet u kojem je prirodno bojati se, biti uplašen ovakvim nadzorom, nasiljem nad našim tijelima i što nosimo na njima. Međutim, veći je strah ako se predamo, stopimo i počnemo nestajati jedan za drugim, što će ovaj lažni sklad izgledati normalniji, to će se represija činiti manje šokantnom.
For the children we are raising, the injustice of today could become the ordinary of tomorrow. They'll get used to this, and they, too, might begin to see anything different as dirty, something to be hated, something to be extinguished, like lights to be put out, one by one, until darkness becomes a way of life. However, if I today, then you tomorrow, maybe even more of us someday, if we embrace our right to look like ourselves, then in the world that's been violently whitewashed, we will become the pinpricks of color pushing through, much like those widows of Vrindavan.
Za djecu koju odgajamo, današnja nepravda mogla bi postati sutrašnja svakodnevica. Naviknut će se na nju i mogli bi na sve što je drugačije početi gledati kao na nešto prljavo, nešto što treba mrziti, što treba istrijebiti, poput gašenja svjetala, jedno po jedno, dok tmina ne postane način života. Ipak, ako ja danas, vi sutra, a možda čak i više nas jednog dana, prigrlimo naše pravo da izgledamo poput nas, tada ćemo u svijetu koji je nasilno potisnut, postati raznobojna šačica koja se probija, poput udovica iz Vrindavana.
How then, with so many of us, will the crosshairs of a gun be able to pick out Karar, Malala, Alisha? Can they kill us all?
Kako će tada, kada nas bude toliko, pištolji moći naciljati jednog Karara, Malalu, Alishu? Mogu li nas sve ubiti?
The time is now to stand up, to stand out. Where sameness is safeness, with something as simple as what we wear, we can draw every eye to ourselves to say that there are differences in this world, and there always will be. Get used to it. And this we can say without a single word. Fashion can give us a language for dissent. It can give us courage. Fashion can let us literally wear our courage on our sleeves. So wear it. Wear it like armor. Wear it because it matters. And wear it because you matter.
Vrijeme je da ustanemo, da se istaknemo. Gdje istovjetnost znači sigurnost, nečim jednostavnim poput onoga što nosimo, na sebe možemo privući svačiju pažnju i reći da u svijetu postoje različitosti i uvijek će postojati. Naviknite se na to. I to možemo reći bez ijedne riječi. Moda nam omogućuje izražavanje neslaganja. Ona nam može dati snagu. Moda nam doslovce pruža mogućnost nošenja naše hrabrosti na rukavima. Nosite je. Nosite je poput oklopa. Nosite je jer je bitno. Nosite je jer ste vi bitni.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)