特朗普的领带和政治着装新潮流

Trump vs. the Disappearing Tie

特朗普的领带和政治着装新潮流

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is a political outlier not only when it comes to immigration policy, Twitter and marital history, but also when it comes to image.

共和党的推定总统候选人唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)是政治家中的异类，而这不仅仅是在涉及移民政策、Twitter和婚史的时候，在个人形象上也是。

This isn’t, of course, a coincidence. But it is notable. I am not speaking here of his much discussed hair, or even his somewhat florid skin color. I am speaking of his ties.

当然，这并不是巧合，但很值得注意。我在这里不是要说他广受谈论的发型，甚至也不是他那过分红润的肤色。我是想说他的领带。

And not because, according to CNN, his own-brand ties are made in China and thus seemingly contradict his vow to bring jobs back to America. Or because the ties he actually wears on the stump — the shiny, brightly colored ones with the big knots — are Brioni, made in Italy.

这也不是因为，根据CNN报道，他拥有的那个品牌的领带是在中国制造的，而这和他把工作机会重新带回美国的宣言有所矛盾。也不是因为他在演说时打的领带——鲜明的亮色，系着粗大的结——其实是意大利布里奥尼(Brioni)品牌的。

But, rather, because of the sheer fact that he actually wears a tie. Almost all the time. If in the early days of his campaign — while attending, say, the Iowa State Fair — Mr. Trump occasionally lost the neckwear, those days seem increasingly rare.

我要说的其实是他打领带这个事实。他几乎所有时间都打领带。只有竞选初期偶尔会不打领带——比如说，参加艾奥瓦州展会的时候——不过这样的情况似乎愈来愈少见。

The pretty much constant presence of the tie has served to highlight another, less discussed but no less pointed gulf between the candidate and those he would call peers: For many politicians, the tie is no longer considered a necessary part of the uniform.

领带愈来愈多地出现，是为了强调另一样事物，它虽然较少被讨论，但是也同样显示出这位竞选者与其他竞选者的区别：对于许多政治家们来说，领带已经不是正装不可缺少的一部分。

“The president has been wearing a tie less and less,” said Tammy Haddad, a Washington media consultant and former political director of MSNBC. “It is an overt expression of the way this White House has been trying to make politics more human.”

“总统打领带的场合愈来愈少，”华盛顿媒体顾问与MSNBC的政治主管塔米·哈达德(Tammy Haddad)说。“这显然表明，白宫试着让政治变得更加人性化。”

Indeed, all the way back in 2013, the Business Insider website ran a post entitled, “Is President Obama Killing the Necktie Business?”

事实上，回到2013年， Business Insider网站就发过一篇文章，题为《奥巴马总统杀死了领带产业？》(Is President Obama Killing the Necktie Business?)。

The president did not wear a tie to dinner with Princes William and Harry during his recent visit to Britain. (They did not wear ties, either.) He did not wear a tie during his news conference about Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February. (The Internet was not happy.) He did not wear a tie for his opening dinner with President Xi Jinping of China when Mr. Xi arrived in Washington for a state visit last September. (It may have been “informal,” but it had photo ops.)

总统前不久访问英国，和威廉王子与哈里王子共进晚餐时就没有打领带（两位王子也没打）。他在2月出席最高法院大法官安东宁·斯卡利亚 (Justice Antonin Scalia)去世的新闻发布会时也没打领带（网上对此表示不快）。去年9月，中国国家主席习近平来华盛顿进行国事访问时，总统在欢迎宴会上也没有打领带（那可能是一次“非正式场合”，但活动是有摄影记者拍照环节的）。

As it happens, neither did Mr. Xi, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of the Treasury Jacob J. Lew or Max Baucus, the ambassador to China. Nor did Jeb Bush when he announced his candidacy for president.

当时，习近平主席、副总统小约瑟夫·R·拜登(Joseph R. Biden Jr.)、国务卿约翰·克里(John Kerry)、财政部长雅各布·J·卢(Jacob J. Lew)与驻华大使马克斯·鲍卡斯(Max Baucus)全都没有打领带。杰布·布什(Jeb Bush)宣布竞选总统时也没有打领带。

And this is not simply an American development. On Saturday, Sadiq Khan took his oath of office as the new mayor of London in Southwark Cathedral — in a navy suit, white shirt and no tie. The previous week, he and his opponent, Zac Goldsmith, were each pictured on the cover of The London Evening Standard going to vote — in blue suits, white shirts and no ties. In an often contentious campaign, it seemed one of the few tactics both men agreed on. Indeed, the campaign itself was labeled by various Britons as “the most informal in memory.”

这也不仅仅是美国的趋势。星期六，萨迪克·汗(Sadiq Khan)在绍斯沃克大教堂宣誓就职伦敦新任市长时，身穿海军蓝西装、白衬衫，没打领带。上周，《伦敦旗帜晚报》(London Evening Standard)上刊出了他和他的对手扎克·古德史密斯(Zac Goldsmith)去竞选的画像，两人身穿蓝色西装、白衬衫，没打领带。在通常充满争议的选举中，两人似乎在这个问题上达成了一项罕见的一致。事实上，许多英国人都把选举当成“记忆里最不正式的一件事”。

But Mr. Khan’s apparent lack of allegiance to the tie does not come close to that of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece, who practically made his refusal to wear a tie part of his electoral platform a year ago.

但是在这方面，汗对领带忠诚程度的缺乏，还无法和希腊总理亚力克西斯·齐普拉斯(Alexis Tsipras)相比，一年前希腊选举期间，齐普拉斯几乎从来没打过领带。

That Mr. Khan and Mr. Tsipras represent left-wing parties may seem significant (Mr. Tsipras being more extreme than Mr. Khan), except that in 2013, Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, who is a Conservative, decreed, as host of the Group of 8 summit, that the dress code would be “informal,” which translated as tieless. There is a reason one of his nicknames is “dress-down Dave.”

汗和齐普拉斯都代表左翼政党，这一点可能非常重要（齐普拉斯比汗还要极端），不过，2013年，英国首相、保守党人大卫·卡梅伦主持八国集团峰会时，会议的着装要求是“非正式”，换句话说就是不用打领带。所以他有个外号叫“便装戴夫”(dress-down Dave)。

“The tie is an issue that dwells in the minds of candidates, their spouses and their handlers for endless hours,” said Bennet Ratcliff, an international political consultant and founder of Thaw Strategies. “I once had a president spend 15 minutes talking to me about his tie when we could have been discussing the language of a peace accord.”

“领带是个无时无刻不潜藏在候选人、他们的配偶以及顾问们心中的问题，”国际政治顾问与Thaw Strategies的创始人本奈特·拉特克利夫(Bennet Ratcliff)说。“曾经有一位总统花了15分钟时间和我讨论他的领带，当时我们其实本可以讨论一份和平协定的措辞问题。”

If the decision on what tie to wear is so complicated, imagine the conversation about not wearing one at all. Such choices are not made by accident, or without an agenda.

如果打什么样的领带已经是那么复杂的决策，试想一场关于索性不打领带的讨论会有多麻烦。这样的选择不是随意作出的，也不是没有目的的。

Call it Phase 3 of political dress evolution.

不妨把这称之为政治着装进化的第三阶段。

Phase 1 was the hatless John F. Kennedy at his inauguration in 1961, signaling to all watchers that a new, breezier generation was in charge. Phase 2 was the lose-the-jacket, roll-up-your-sleeves look, adopted by politicians at the end of the 20th century in multiple in-the-office photo ops, the better to demonstrate their work ethic. And now we are here.

第一阶段是1961年约翰·F·肯尼迪(John F. Kennedy)出席就职仪式时没有戴帽子，向所有观者宣告更加轻松自信的新一代已经开始掌权。第二阶段是20年代末期那种敞开外套，卷起袖子的政客形象，出现在不少办公室拍照环节中，这可以更好地展现他们的敬业精神。现在又是不打领带的风潮。

Ties have not disappeared from the political arena, of course. The rules of the House of Representatives demand that men wear a coat and tie on the floor when Congress is in session. (Former Speaker John Boehner was known for rebuking his colleagues if he thought they were showing disrespect to the institution by dressing too casually.) Ditto the Senate. President Obama often wears a tie; so does Mr. Cameron.

当然，领带并没有完全从政坛消失。众议院要求男性穿西装打领带出席议会会议（前议长约翰·博纳[John Boehner]以抨击同僚着装随意、对议会不敬著称）。参议院也是一样。奥巴马总统和卡梅伦都经常打领带。

World leaders in other hemispheres, of course, have traditionally had a different kind of uniform, one that can involve cultural, often indigenous, garment tropes.

当然，世界上其他地方的领导人有完全不同的传统着装，可能涉及通常是本土文化的衣着语言。

But in the West, there is no question that the tie has become a variable in the political calculation, instead of a constant. Though it is easy to chalk it up to generational change, a more accurate interpretation probably has to do with ideology, opportunism and spin-doctoring. After all, this is a time when social media has meant that the optics of a message — or how it is delivered — are increasingly important. And ubiquitous.

但在西方，毫无疑问，领带已经成为政治筹算中的一个变量，而不是常数。尽管这很容易被归结为代际变迁，但更准确的解释或许和意识形态、机会主义和舆论操控有关。毕竟，在这个时代，社交媒体意味着信息的视觉效果——或者它的传达方式——变得愈来愈重要。而且是无处不在的。

“You can’t overestimate it, but you shouldn’t underestimate it either,” said Steve Hilton, the chief executive of Crowdpac, a site that matches politicians and would-be donors by their priorities, and Mr. Cameron’s former director of strategy. “There is a huge interest now in personal character, and how you dress is an immediate access point for that. It’s a part of an overall message, and a pretty important one.”

“你不能高估它，同样，你也不能低估它，”史蒂夫·希尔顿(Steve Hilton)说，他是Crowdpac的首席执行官。这是一个根据每个人的关注事项为政治家和潜在赞助者配对的网站。另外他也是卡梅伦的前战略主管。 “人们现在对个性非常感兴趣，你的着装可以很快传递出个性。这是整体信息的一部分，是相当重要的。”

This was overtly satirized in a BBC Two show called “The Thick of It” (it inspired the HBO series “Veep”), which ran sporadically in Britain from 2007 to 2012 and featured a communications director called Stewart Pearson. The character was on a mission to update his party, in part by urging elected officials, including his fictional party leader, not to wear ties.

BBC 2台的电视剧《幕后危机》(The Thick of It)于20007年到2012年在英国间断地播出（正是它启发了HBO台电视剧《副总统》[Veep]），片中就公开讽刺了这一点。《幕后危机》中有一个名叫斯图尔特·皮尔森(Stewart Pearson)的联络主管，他的使命是帮助本党跟上时代 ，具体的工作就包括敦促已经当选公职的官员（包括这个虚构的党魁）不要打领带。

As it happens, Stewart Pearson was inspired by Mr. Hilton, who was widely credited with persuading Mr. Cameron to ditch his tie, the better to sway voters to “take another look at the Conservative party,” as Mr. Hilton said in a phone call from California, where he lives now. It wasn’t the same old, same old — at least when it came to wardrobe. (You have to start somewhere.)

其实斯图尔特·皮尔森这个人物的灵感就是来自希尔顿，人们都觉得是他说服卡梅伦放弃领带的，这样可以让摇摆的选民“以另一种眼光来看待保守党，”希尔顿现居加利福利亚，他在家中接受电话采访时这样说。这个党并不总是老一套，至少在着装方面已经不是了（你总得从什么地方起头吧）。

The decision to play hide-and-seek with the tie is “a reflection of the current cultural environment, and an effort to seem like a part of that,” Mr. Ratcliff, the consultant, said, adding: “The leaders are just following the voters. Thank God they haven’t all started wearing black turtlenecks like one unnamed entrepreneur, though it will come to that eventually.”

政客和领带的捉迷藏游戏“反映了当前的文化环境，以及想要融入这种环境的努力，”顾问拉特克利夫说，并补充道，“领导者们只是迎合选民，谢天谢地，他们没有一股脑地像某位不用说名字的企业家那样穿上黑色高领衫，不过最后总有一天会变成那样的。”

The Steve Jobs allusion is a reflection of the new economic power structure, one that celebrates the technical entrepreneurial class and the shadow banking sector, both of whose casual style has had a creeping influence on professional dress code, redefining what future success looks like in the popular imagination.

拉特克利夫对史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steve Jobs)的影射反映了新经济权力的结构，它彰显着技术实业阶层和非传统金融行业的力量，而这两个领域的随意着装风格正在潜移默化地影响职场穿衣规范，重新定义着在大众观念中，未来成功者的样子。

In part, this is how we find ourselves in this weird, inverted sartorial reality, where Mr. Trump has become the exception to the rule because he follows traditional rules. His tie-wearing harks back to the Wall Street uniform of the 1980s, the boom years of the American economy, when it was “morning in America” and Gordon Gekko preached the “greed is good” gospel. The candidate’s mouth says he wants to “make America great again,” and his clothes refer back to the last time many Republicans believed that was actually the case. He is emphatically and consciously not the new-look candidate. He is the old-look candidate.

某种程度上，这也是我们在这个奇异而颠倒的服装现实世界中，寻找自己的方式，在这个世界里，特朗普通过遵循传统规则，反而成了规则的例外。他戴领带的样子让人想起20世纪80年代的华尔街着装，那正是美国经济的繁荣时代，是“美国的清晨”，也是戈登·盖柯(Gordon Gekko)鼓吹“贪婪是好东西”这句箴言的时代。特朗普说，他要“让美国恢复伟大荣光(make America great again)”，而他的着装暗指了上一次许多共和党人相信美国的确伟大的时代。毫无疑问，他故意让自己在形象上不像是一个新派的候选人。他是个老派的候选人。

Thus the tie divide, like many others in this particular election, gets ever wider.

于是领带问题就像这场选举中的其他不少问题一样，分歧变得愈来愈大。