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.
在我十岁的时候, 有一天,我发现了一个 爸爸装旧东西的箱子。 在里面的一堆大学教材下面, 是几条黑色灯芯绒喇叭裤。 这些裤子的状态糟糕透了—— 都发霉,有虫蛀了。 而当时的我,却爱极了它们。 我以前从来没有见过这样的款式。 在那之前, 我所了解的、穿的都是校服。 但我却对此充满感激, 因为从非常小的时候, 我就意识到自己与其他人不同。 我从没见过有哪一个同龄的男孩子 比我还不擅长运动的, 也许只有最娇气的 男孩才会比我差吧。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
那个时候,我常常遭到欺凌。 我发现只有 成了“透明人”才能幸存, 而正是校服拯救了我, 它让我看上去 与其他的小孩没什么不同。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
好吧,大部分情况下是这样的。 而这也成了我每日的仪式: “神啊,请让我和其他人一样。” 我当时确信这句话 上帝是一定听得到的。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
And eventually, it became pretty clear that I was not growing up to be the son that my father always wanted. Sorry, Dad.
后来,顺理成章地, 我也并没有成长为 我父亲期望的样子。 对不住了,爸爸。
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.
实际上,我并不可能 发生一个巨大的变化。 在成长中,我越来越不清楚 我想要成为什么样的人了。 所以,当那几条黑色的灯芯绒喇叭裤 出现在我眼前的时候。 我的生活泛起了波澜。 我看到的不是一条裤子。 我看到的是机会。 于是我决定无论第二天 发生什么事情, 我都必须穿着这条裤子去学校。 当我把脚伸入其中一条裤子 并拴紧腰带的时候, 我瞬间就感觉棒极了, 就像明星那般神气十足。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
All the way to school, and then all the way back because I was sent home at once --
在往返学校的路上, 因为一到了学校,我就被遣返了——
(Laughter)
(笑声)
I transformed into a little brown rock star.
我变成了一个 棕色皮肤的摇滚小明星。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
我终于不再理会 我不能讨好的人了。 在那天,我开始为这个转变而欢呼。 在那一天, 与往常的“透明人”不同, 我反而希望能被别人看见, 虽然仅仅是靠着穿着的不同。 在那一天,我发现了衣着的魅力。 在那一天,我看到了时尚的力量, 从那以后,我对时尚的热爱 便一发不可收拾。
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?
时尚能向世界展示我们的差异。 仅仅是了解到了这一点, 我意识到这些差异—— 它们不再是我们的耻辱。 它们成了我们的名片, 独一无二的名片。 我们应该表达自我, 穿自己想穿的衣服。 最糟的情况会发生什么呢? 时尚警察会因为穿着 不时髦而逮捕你吗?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
并不会。 除非时尚警察有着其他的意味。 诺贝尔和平奖得主马拉拉(Malala), 在 2012 年 10 月 塔利班激进分子事件中得以幸存。 然而,在 2017 年 10 月 17 日, 她又遇上了另外一个敌人, 网上的键盘侠们恶意攻击 她 20 岁时穿牛仔裤的照片。 她所遭受的 评论、谩骂, 涉及的范围从:“这个围巾戴了多久了?” 到评论说, “这就是为什么之前子弹 直接瞄准了 她脑袋的原因。” 如今,当大多数人 决定穿牛仔裤的时候, 比如,在纽约,伦敦, 米兰,巴黎,这样的地方, 我们也许并不会意识到 穿牛仔裤是一种特权, 是一件会在某个地方 引起轩然大波的事情, 是某天我们会被夺走的权利。
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.
我的祖母是一位 热衷打扮的女士。 缤纷的色彩代表了她的时尚理念。 她所爱的颜色也许就是唯一 能够代表她自己的东西, 她唯一能掌控的事。 跟那个年代印度的 绝大多数女性一样, 她被告诫不能违背 习俗与传统中的规定。 她在 17 岁的时候就出嫁了, 在婚后 65 年的某一天, 我的祖父突然辞世, 她几近崩溃。 但同时,在那一天, 她也会失去其他的一些东西, 她所拥有的乐趣之一: 穿上色彩丰富的衣服。 根据印度的习俗, 当一个印度女人变成了寡妇, 从他丈夫死亡的那天起, 她只能穿白色。 没有人强迫我的祖母 穿上白色的衣服。 然而,她所了解到的每一位寡妇, 包括她的母亲, 都是这么做的。 这种在我祖母心中如此内化的、 根深蒂固的压制, 迫使她放弃了选择。 她是在今年去世的, 而直至她去世的那一天, 她仍然穿着白色的衣服。
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.
我现在还存着早前 我和我快乐的祖母的合照; 其实你看不清她穿的是什么—— 因为这是一张黑白照。 但是从她的微笑, 你就能推断她是 穿着有颜色的衣服的。 这也是时尚能够做到的一点。 它能够给予我们愉悦感, 一种我们能够自由控制 自己外在形象的愉悦, 一种能够选择 自己生活方式的愉悦感—— 而这种自由是值得为之奋斗的。 而为自由而奋斗的形式有很多种。
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.
像我祖母一样的印度寡妇, 她们中的很多人, 生活在一座名为 维伦达文(Vrindavan)的城市。 所以,这座城市就像是 一片白色的海洋。 然而,就在 2013 年, 维伦达文的寡妇们 开始庆祝胡里节(Holi), 即印度泼洒色彩的节日。 这是她们不被允许参加的节日。 在 3 月的这一天, 这些妇女们用节日专用的彩色粉末 对着彼此泼洒。 每当她们向空气中洒出一捧粉末, 她们的白色纱丽就多了一点颜色。 直到被染上了所有 被禁忌的颜色时, 她们才肯收手。 而这些颜色会在第二天被清洗掉, 但是,在那一刻, 是她们破茧成蝶的美丽瞬间。 这种突破, 任何的不和谐, 将成为我们对抗压迫的先锋。 而时尚—— 能够在视觉上激励我们—— 毫不夸张地说,就是这样。
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.
由于蔑视而带来的代价早已被 时尚巨擘们阐释得清清楚楚: 它的设计师。 法国品牌保罗·高缇耶(Jean Paul Gaultier) 告诉我们,女人也能成为王者。 汤姆·布朗(Thom Browne) (美国男装设计师)—— 告诉我们, 男人也可以穿高跟鞋。 而亚历山大·麦奎因( Alexander McQueen) 在他 1999 年春季秀的舞台中央 设置了两个巨大的机械手臂。 作为模特的莎洛姆哈罗(Shalom Harlow) 开始在这两个手臂之间旋转, 而这两个巨大的手臂—— 刚开始鬼鬼祟祟,而后变得狂躁, 开始向她喷洒颜色, 而麦奎因 在他自杀之前, 让我们明白到 我们的身体就是一张画布, 一张我们能够自由发挥的画布。
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.
有一个名为卡然尔努什 (Karar Nushi)的男孩 就沉浸在艺术的世界中。 他是一名来自伊拉克的学生, 同时也是一名演员。 他喜欢充满活力与激情的衣服。 然而,他却因自己的衣着 接连收到死亡威胁信。 而他并不为此苦恼。 他依旧保持着自己的风格。 直到 2017 年 7 月, 据报道,卡然尔死在了巴格达 (伊拉克首都)一条繁华的街道上。 他被人绑架, 备受折磨。 通过肉眼就可发现 他身上有多处伤口。 刺伤。
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.
距离白沙瓦(巴基斯坦北部城市) 两千英里的地方, 巴基斯坦跨性别活动家艾丽莎(Alisha) 在 2016 年 5 月受到多次枪击。 她被送去了医院, 但是因为她穿着女人的衣服, 所以她既不能被安排进入男性病房, 也不能入住女性病房。 毫不夸张地说,我们所选择的穿着 可能决定着我们的生死。 甚至有时在面对死亡的时候, 我们并没有机会做选择。 艾丽莎在那天死去, 以一个男人的身份被埋入坟墓。
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.
这个世界到底怎么了? 在这个世界中,对这样的监视 感到害怕或者恐惧是很自然的, 这是一种与我们身体 以及穿着相悖的暴力。 但是,更可怕的恐惧在于, 一旦我们屈服, 顺从, 慢慢失去了自己的坚持, 越是顺应着错误的指令 让自己看上去普通, 这种压迫感就会变得 越不那么令人窒息。
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.
对于我们的孩子而言, 今天的不公,将会在未来变得平常。 他们会将其视为平常, 这就意味着,他们也会把差异 视为一种肮脏的, 可恶的, 需要被清除的的东西, 就像是灯光被逐渐扑灭, 一个接着一个, 直到黑暗成了生活的主宰。 但是,如果我在今天, 你们在明天 甚至更多的人在某个时代, 都能接纳自己, 敢于展示出自己的特点, 那么在白色恐怖下的世界中, 我们将成为一根根小针, 让颜色能够渗透进来, 就像维伦达文的寡妇们那般。
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?
到那时候,我们的队伍日益庞大, 还会有人通过枪支上的瞄准器 能够在人群中识别出卡然尔, 马拉拉, 艾丽莎吗? 他们能把我们全部杀死吗?
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.
现在,我们应该站起来, 站出来。 在强调相同即安全的地方, 简单到像我们的衣着, 我们可以把目光对准自己, 意识到世界上存在着差异, 而这种差异将是会一直存在的。 要将其视为自然。 而差异,我们可以不用语言讲明。 时尚,能够成为 我们表达不同意见的语言。 它能够给予我们勇气。 时尚,能够让我们把勇气穿在身上。 那么,请穿上它吧。 像铠甲一样穿上它。 穿上它,因为这很重要。 穿上它,更因为你们很重要。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)