Clothes Worthy of Their Label
那些对得起其“品牌”的品牌

PARIS — You sometimes think, at the bleary end of a runway season, that fashion would be better off if companies didn’t have labels to sell.

巴黎——在一个时装季即将结束的时候，你有时会想，如果时装公司不用推销品牌，时装业也许会更兴隆。

Take Saint Laurent. One of the first things the new designer, Hedi Slimane, did was to remove “Yves” from the label, thereby severing a symbolic connection to the founder, and everything he stood for, like good taste and feminine power. But it was also a test of the label’s enduring appeal.

以圣罗兰(Saint Laurent)为例。它的新设计师艾迪·斯里曼(Hedi Slimane)首先着手做的其中一件事是把“Yves”从品牌名中删去了，从而象征性地切断该品牌与其创始人之间的联系，也切断这位创始人所代表的一切，比如优雅的品味和女性的力量。但是这也是在考验这个品牌是否具有持久的吸引力。

Who needed the extra syllable when Saint Laurent was virtually lodged in people’s ears, and so much fun to say?

圣罗兰这个名字实际上已经深深地印在了人们的脑海里，而且念起来很有趣，所以谁还需要那个多余的音节呢？
 

LOUIS VUITTON：VUITTON的舞台背景——贴着墙纸的酒店。

Mr. Slimane has been the talk of Paris Fashion Week, or at least the closing days, largely because he showed a grunge collection of baby-doll dresses and flannel shirts, which I viewed online because I was not invited to the show. Opinion varied widely. Many people said the clothes looked like stuff sold at Topshop or a thrift store, while others defended Mr. Slimane’s approach and identified pieces, like a pink fur chubby, that relate back to Yves’s designs of the late ’60s and early ’70s, when he got ideas — say, for a pea coat — from the street. It’s doubtful that customers will make that connection, but such comments serve to validate what Mr. Slimane has done.

斯里曼成了巴黎时装周的中心话题，至少在结尾的几天是这样的，主要是因为他推出了不羁颓废风格的系列时装，包括极富青春气息的连衣裙和法兰绒衬衫，这些都是我在网上看到的，因为我没被邀请去现场观秀。人们的看法大不相同。很多人说这些衣服看起来像是Topshop或者旧货店里卖的那种衣服，也有些人为斯里曼辩护，指出其中一些衣服，比如那件圆滚滚的粉色皮草外套与伊夫在60年代末70年代初设计的水兵短外套有些神似，当时他的灵感来自街头服饰。我觉得顾客很难把这两者联系起来，但是这些争议证明斯里曼已经达到了目的。

And the controversy is good for Saint Laurent. But mainly it was clear to me how strong the name is. In terms of design, the clothes held considerably less value than a box of Saint Laurent labels. Without the label attached to them, Mr. Slimane’s grunge dresses wouldn’t attract interest — because they’re not special. But a box of labels is worth a million.

这些争议对圣罗兰来说是好事。但是更重要的是它让我清楚地看到了这个品牌是多么强大。从设计的角度讲，这些衣服的价值远不如一盒圣罗兰商标。要不是因为上面的商标，斯里曼的邋遢服不会引起人们的兴趣，因为它们不够特别。但是一盒商标就值一百万。

Hermès stands in sharp contrast to the Saint Laurent show and its lazy values. From the first few outfits, shown in a school library near the Sorbonne, you were aware that real design was at work here and that Hermès was not resting on its fancy haunches. For my money, this was one of the top two or three collections in Paris, and maybe of the entire ready-to-wear season; and for the simple fact that somebody at Hermès refused to let fashion take over the clothes. You could see elements of Martin Margiela’s eye-changing designs for the house, in one or two pants outfits and an austere gray V-neck wool dress with a white collarless shirt, but even his fashion was not allowed to intrude.

爱马仕(Hermès)与圣罗兰的时装秀及其慵懒的态度形成了鲜明的对比。发布会在巴黎大学附近的一个学校图书馆举行。从开头的几身套装上，你就能意识到这才是真正的设计，爱马仕没有躺在功劳簿上睡大觉。在我看来，在这次的巴黎时装周上，甚至可以说在整个成衣时装季上，它能排到第二或第三名。原因很简单：爱马仕公司的某个人拒绝让时尚掌控服装。你可以在其中一些衣服上看到马丁·马吉拉(Martin Margiela)为该公司设计的一些元素，让人耳目一新，比如其中的一两套裤套装，还有一件朴素的灰色V领羊毛连衣裙搭配白色无领衬衫，但是即使是他开创的时尚也不能占据主导。

Somebody made incredibly good judgments: about the fit, the proportions, the selective use of silk prints, the natural looking prettiness of the models. Christophe Lemaire is the women’s designer at Hermès, but past collections have tended to be overloaded with volume and color — nowhere near as sharp as this one.

某人的判断力极佳：衣服合身，比例恰到好处，丝质印花选得很好，模特们也天生丽质。克里斯托弗·勒迈尔(Christophe Lemaire)是爱马仕的女装设计师，但是他过去设计的系列衣服数量太多，颜色太杂，远比不上这个系列如此鲜明。

Also, there wasn’t a lick of branding in the show, unless you count a suede and calf-hair coat in a horse-blanket medley of colors. You knew it was Hermès, because Hermès is supposed to be about good taste, and here was the modern expression of it.

而且这次时装秀也没有突出品牌特色的意思，除非你把那件马毯杂色绒面革小牛毛外套算作其品牌特色。你知道那是爱马仕的服装，因为爱马仕代表着优雅的品味，而这正是这种品味的现代表达。

Good taste doesn’t have to be old-looking or bourgeois. What a crummy prison of ideas, the fashion world can be. Nor does it have to scream luxury. In fact, it shouldn’t. At Hermès, it was conveyed in the balance of impeccable cut and rustic textures, like goatskin coats, and in the array of pieces, like cashmere wraps or a blousy shirt worn with a full leather skirt, that owe as much to simplicity as the attitude of the woman who wears them.

品味优雅不是说一定要看起来老气或者小资。时装界能变成一个禁锢思想的监狱。品味优雅也不是一定要炫耀奢华。实际上，它不应该那样。在爱马仕，优雅的品味是通过完美的剪裁和纯朴的质地之间的平衡来传达的，比如山羊皮外套、羊绒披肩、宽松的衬衫搭配皮质伞裙。这一切既要归功于服装的简洁，也要归功于模特们的自然态度。

The fall collections closed on Wednesday with a lively big-time show by Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton, and a fresh look from Miu Miu. These are really editorial collections, with a fashion gesture usually blown up, like the extra-long silhouette at Miu Miu (thanks to cute, slim-fitting cardigans bundled over long silk-print skirts with 1890s button boots) and a spree of polka-dot midi-coats. The silhouette made the collection.

秋季系列周三晚上闭幕，最后登场的是马克·雅各布斯(Marc Jacobs)为Louis Vuitton设计的充满活力的、一流的时装秀，以及Miu Miu推出的全新形象。这些衣服真的是精选，手法有些夸张，比如Miu Miu超长的剪裁（漂亮、修身的羊毛衫搭配丝质印花半身长裙以及19世纪90年代的纽扣靴子）和好几件波尔卡圆点长外衣。裁剪造就了这个系列。

Mr. Jacobs recreated the glamorous mood of a hotel, or rather the half-dressed attitude of women coming and going from their different rooms, apparently with seduction in mind. Though most of his audience probably had sleep in mind (Mr. Jacobs wore pajamas), this collection was indeed inviting, with some beautiful undies mixed in with handsome, strict coats and powder-puff bags.

雅各布斯重现了酒店里的那种迷人的感觉，或者说女人在各个房间进进出出、衣衫不整的那种态度，明显带有诱惑的意味。虽然大部分观众很可能联想到的是睡觉（雅各布斯穿的是睡衣）。这个系列真的很诱人，包括美丽的内衣、漂亮精致的外套和化妆包。