《時尚芭莎》前主編如何實現了巴黎夢

We’ll always have Paris. And as long as there are Americans who long to reinvent themselves, we’ll always have books about Paris — books that still mention Hemingway and ­pigeon-gray rooftops, lovers in cafes and swirling Gauloise smoke. If there’s anything new to be said about the city, or a surprising new way in which to describe it, it’s as rare as a helpful French bureaucrat — at least in the latest batch of books in which Paris is a main character. Kate Betts, at least, got what she went there for. And now, almost 30 years later, she shares her coming-of-age in a self-assured book that should be given to every college senior with a Doisneau poster (or Chanel ad) on her wall.

巴黎無孔不入。只要有渴望重塑自我的美國人在，關於巴黎的書就不會中斷。那些書依舊提到海明威，提到鴿灰色的屋頂、咖啡館裏的情侶與高盧牌(Gauloise)香菸。關於這座城市，可說的新鮮事，或者談論這些新鮮事的方法，就像樂於助人的法國官員，少之又少——這至少適用於最新一批圍繞巴黎而寫的書。不過，凱特·貝茨(Kate Betts)在巴黎得到了她想要的。30年快過去了，她在充滿信心的新書中分享了自己的成長經歷。而這本書應該被送給牆上掛着攝影師杜瓦諾(Doisneau)海報或香奈兒廣告的每一位大四女孩。

The intensity of the sights and flavors of Paris — not to mention “the shock of history” — Betts felt there on vacation ­before entering Princeton shook the preppy New Yorker. After graduation in 1986, while her friends were preparing to enter law school, she rebelled by heading to Paris without a plan. Although she’d envisioned becoming a war correspondent, she never made it past the city that was home to the fashion and culture she most admired. Betts wanted to become French, and, in this transformation, to learn who she was.

進入普林斯頓大學前的那個假期，貝茨曾到巴黎遊覽，光是隨處可見的美景與風情，就令她這個學生氣又學院風的紐約客感到震驚，更不必說那種“歷史的震撼”。1986年，貝茨從大學畢業。她的朋友們都在爲上法學院做準備，她卻叛逆地來到巴黎，一點計劃都沒做。貝茨曾夢想成爲一名戰地記者，但巴黎這座城市有她最愛的時尚與文化，這個念頭從沒超出過這個城市。貝茨想變得更加“法國”，在這種轉換中，她想了解自己。

And so she set about cracking the codes of manners, language and style that so govern the French. Her teachers ranged from the slang-spouting children of the family with whom she first lived to the chic friend who shook her head in disbelief when Betts triumphantly displayed a cantaloupe-colored Chanel tweed jacket she’d scored at a sample sale. (“Wear Chanel when you can afford to buy it in the color that suits you. . . . That is the essence of style,” Betts meekly deduced.) And, of course, there are men. But they’re more guides than teachers, especially her love, Hervé, who shows her “douce France” on weekends.

她開始破解主宰法國人言談舉止和風格的符碼。寄住家庭裏滿嘴俗語的小孩和識破她在特賣場上買到的冒牌香奈兒青綠色粗花呢外套的時髦朋友，都成爲了她的老師。（“能買得起香奈兒的時候纔買香奈兒，而且要買顏色適合你的……這是時尚的精髓，”貝茨溫順地歸納道。）當然，巴黎還有男人。但他們更像導遊而不是老師，特別是她的愛人艾赫維(Hervé)，週末總是帶她去參觀“親愛的法蘭西”。

Hervé takes her on a wild-boar hunt in Brittany, granting her access to a closed society. It’s her article about that day that grants her access to another closed society. John Fairchild, the publisher of the fashion bibles Women’s Wear Daily and W, was impressed by her ability to infiltrate the aristo event; it was precisely the kind of story he wanted in his new men’s magazine, M. And here her real education begins. The stories of smoky parties blasting Les Rita Mitsouko quickly drop off in the book’s second half, as Betts’s future clicks into focus. She sets about defining herself through work, and her work is fashion.

艾赫維帶她去布列塔尼半島參加瘋狂的野豬狩獵，帶她進入了一個封閉的小社會。而她寫下的關於那天經歷的文章，讓她進入了又一個封閉的圈子。風尚聖經《女裝日報》(Women’s Wear Daily)和《W》的出版人約翰·費爾柴爾德(John Fairchild)欣賞她打入貴族圈子參加活動的能力。貝茨的文章正是他新辦的男刊《M》所需要的故事。對貝茨來說，她接受的真正的教育是從這裏開始的。在這本書的後半部分，她不再講述那些煙霧繚繞，響着“麗塔蝴蝶夫人”(Les Rita Mitsouko)樂隊歌曲的聚會，她的未來變得清晰起來。她開始在工作中找到自己，她的工作就是時尚。

Not only does Betts have to navigate the insular, highly codified fashion world, she also has to survive the hazing at the office, where Fairchild might grill her on the best place to go for sole meunière, or the ­socialite-courting bureau chief might rouse her on a Sunday morning, barking at her to find out who the next Dior designer will be. Her exploits are heaven for anyone who remembers the days when “ ‘luxury’ was rarely used in tandem with ‘fashion,’ and the word ‘brand’ referred to Crest and Coca-Cola, not clothing labels.” She does a friend a favor by visiting the studio of an unknown shoe designer whose ugly, fish-scale-covered stilettos she mentions in a small roundup, mostly out of politesse (Christian Louboutin). She attends an exclusive preview in Yves Saint Laurent’s atelier with the frail designer, perfectly describing his “zigzaggy smile.” She follows a hunch about an unheard-of Viennese designer whose minimalist aesthetic is the opposite of the poufy chic of the moment (Helmut Lang). And she discovers the meaning of “fashion moment” at one of the first Martin Margiela shows. Betts remembers what she wore just as clearly. Her outfits tell the story too, as she graduates from Kookaï T-shirts and chinos to Claude Montana leather jackets.

貝茨不僅要在如海島般孤立、有自己規則的時尚界中探索，還要在辦公室政治中生存，在這裏，費爾柴爾德可能讓她變成一道法國名菜——幹煎塌目魚，熱衷討好上流社會的總編也可能在週日上午訓斥她，逼她去查下一任迪奧(Dior)的總設計師是誰。貝茨經歷的冒險對那些仍然記得“‘奢侈’很少同‘時尚’掛鉤，‘品牌’是指佳潔士、可口可樂，而不是服裝牌子的時代”的人來說，已經是天堂了。她受朋友之請，去拜訪一個無名鞋履設計師的工作室，後來只是出於禮貌纔在一篇綜述短文中提到這位設計師醜陋的、包着魚皮的細高跟鞋。這位設計師不是別人，是克里斯提·布魯托(Christian Louboutin)。她去伊夫·聖·洛朗(Yves Saint Laurent)的工作室做獨家專訪，精確地描述這位憔悴的設計師有着“七扭八歪的笑容”。她預感一位名不見經傳的維也納設計師肯定會成功，他的極簡主義美學和當時盛行的厚重風格正好相反，這位設計師是海爾姆特·朗(Helmut Lang)。她還在早期的馬丁·馬吉拉(Martin Margiela)走秀上發現了“時尚時刻”的意義。貝茨記得那時自己穿的是什麼。她自己的打扮也是這場歷險的一部分，從Kookaï T恤衫和棉布褲，到克勞德·蒙塔納(Claude Montana)的皮外套。

Her rise at Fairchild is brisk. But her Paris dream — the apartment with a working fireplace, the designer wardrobe, the fluency — comes true at a cost to her sense of self. A former classmate calls to catch up the night the American air campaign against Baghdad began. He had covered the fall of Communism and the famine in Somalia; Betts realized that she had written about stretch denim and the bottled water at the Ritz. It was time to leave: “I had come to Paris to expand my world, to understand another culture in the intimate way you can only when you immerse yourself in it. But somehow, my world had gotten smaller.”

在費爾柴爾德手下，貝茨升職很快。她的巴黎夢——有壁爐的公寓、充滿設計師作品的衣櫥、流利的法語——終於成真了，但以她自我認同的流失爲代價。美國發動對巴格達空襲的那天晚上，她曾經的同學打電話訊問近況。這位同學曾報道過共產主義的覆滅與索馬里饑荒。貝茨意識到，自己寫的都是些丹寧牛仔的彈性與麗茲酒店(Ritz)的瓶裝水之類。現在，是時候離開了：“當初我來到巴黎是爲了拓展自己的世界，爲了以親密的方式理解另一種文化——把整個人都沉浸在裏面。但不知怎麼，我的世界越來越小。”

As such two-sentence epiphanies show, Betts is a magazine journalist to the core. Although this style, coupled with her WASPy reserve, makes for a relatively unrevealing memoir in today’s market, her emotional hindsight is admirably clear and honest.

這種三言兩語的頓悟表明，本質上，貝茨是一名雜誌記者。儘管這種風格，再加上她那種美國白人清教徒式的矜持，使得這本回憶錄顯得有所保留，但她充滿情感的事後反思仍然極爲清晰誠實。

Fashion and self-examination — froth and wisdom — might seem like odd bookfellows, but Betts brings them together with winning confidence. You wouldn’t have wanted to work with the ambitious, pretentious young Katherine at Fairchild (she overheard the bitchy grumbling and plowed ahead, not stopping until she landed at Vogue and then became the editor of Harper’s Bazaar), but today, you’d definitely want to sit next to her on the banquette for a long lunch at Le Voltaire. Young worshipers of Paris — and of fashion magazines — are in for an education. Those of us who’ve been there and back will find it entertaining and sneakily poignant reading on the flight to Charles de Gaulle.

時尚與自省，瑣事與智慧，這些可能有點像是奇怪的組合，但貝茨帶着迷人的自信把它們放在一起。你可能不想和當年費爾柴爾德手下那個野心勃勃又年輕氣盛的凱特一起工作（她偷聽到有人惡毒地抱怨她，但一直不停步地前進，直到後來去了《Vogue》，最後當上《時尚芭莎》[Harper’s Bazzaar]的主編），但你肯定想在伏爾泰酒店(Le Voltaire)的長條軟椅上和現在的她共進午餐。對於巴黎的和時尚雜誌的年輕崇拜者們而言，讀這本書是一種學習。我們這些去過那裏然後又回來的人，不妨在飛往戴高樂機場的途中打開這本書，你一定會覺得它非常有趣，但帶着隱隱的辛酸。