梅拉尼娅为什么穿上白色套装

It took the State of the Union to get her in a state of quasi-support. On Tuesday night Melania Trump finally appeared in public alongside her husband (or at least in the same very large room, though they apparently arrived separately) for the first time since the public allegations that President Trump had conducted, just weeks after Mrs. Trump had given birth to the couple’s son, an affair with the porn star Stormy Daniels.

要到国情咨文发布会这样的大事才能让她表现出近似支持的姿态。周二晚间，梅拉妮娅·特朗普(Melania Trump)终于在一段时间以来首次同丈夫一起公开亮相(或者至少是在同一个非常大的房间里，尽管他们显然是先后到达的)。此前，特朗普总统被公开指控在梅拉妮娅生下他们的儿子仅数周后，便与色情片明星斯托米·丹尼尔斯(Stormy Daniels)发生婚外情。

That Mrs. Trump did so in a white pantsuit with a glowing white blouse — exactly the kind of outfit that became a symbol of her husband’s rival, Hillary Clinton, during the last election, and has since become widely accepted as sartorial shorthand for both the suffragists and contemporary women’s empowerment and something of an anti-Trump uniform, and also what the women gathered behind Kesha wore to display their sisterhood at Sunday’s Grammy Awards — seemed to be about as subtle a slap in the face as could be contained in a garment.

当晚，特朗普夫人身穿白色裤套装，搭配闪亮的白色上衣——这身行头正是她丈夫的对手希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)在上次选举中的标志性形象，后来被广泛认为是女性参政支持者和当代女性权力支持者的服装象征，也多少成为反特朗普的制服，在周日的格莱美颁奖礼(Grammy Awards)上，聚集在凯莎(Kesha)身后展示姐妹情谊的女性穿的也都是一身白衣——从服装所能传达的讯息角度讲，这几乎相当于微妙地扇了特朗普一个耳光。

She was playing her part, applauding and smiling with the special invited guests whose stories were mentioned in the president’s speech, but she wasn’t doing it entirely as scripted.

她在扮演自己的角色，与总统演讲中提到的特邀嘉宾一起鼓掌、微笑，但她并没有完全照本宣科。

Of course, it’s possible Mrs. Trump chose the suit, an ivory Christian Dior style with cropped trousers and curvaceous jacket, to stand out against the sea of black worn by the Democratic Women’s Working Group and its supporters, following the donning of black at the Golden Globes in honor of Time’s Up and #MeToo. (Though many of those same women wore white to her husband’s first address to a joint session of Congress last year.)

当然，特朗普夫人选择这套服装——象牙色迪奥(Christian Dior)七分裤和具有曲线美的上衣——也可能是为了与民主党女性工作组(Democratic Women’s Working Group)及其支持者区分开来，她们追随的是金球奖(Golden Globes)为支持Time’s Up和#MeToo运动而倡议的全黑造型(尽管去年这些女性中的很多人在梅拉妮娅的丈夫第一次向国会联席会议演讲时身穿白色服装)。

It’s possible Mrs. Trump did it to show solidarity with the female members of the G.O.P., who had been urged to wear patriotic red, white and blue, as were the members of the Cabinet. Many of the men sported ties that matched the blue ones worn by the president and Speaker Paul D. Ryan, and the red one on Vice President Mike Pence.

特朗普夫人的穿着也可能是为了显示自己与共和党女性成员的团结，她们被鼓励穿着表达爱国情结的红、白、蓝三色服装，内阁成员也是如此。许多人佩戴的领带与总统和议长保罗·D·瑞安(Paul D. Ryan)的蓝色领带以及副总统迈克·彭斯(Mike Pence)的红色领带相呼应。

It’s possible she just liked the color, and what it symbolizes about new beginnings (also, of course, purity, but that takes us back to the idea something else might be going on). It’s possible she had no idea that Maria Grazia Chiuri, the artistic director of Christian Dior, made waves in her first collection with a best-selling T-shirt announcing “we should all be feminists.”

也有可能她只是喜欢这个颜色，它象征着新的开始(当然，它也象征纯洁，但这会让我们想起其他事情可能正在发生)。她可能不知道，迪奥的艺术总监玛丽亚·格拉齐亚·基乌里(Maria Grazia Chiuri)曾通过自己第一个系列中的热销T恤掀起一股热潮，T恤上写着：“我们都应该成为女权主义者。”

It’s possible.

这是有可能的。

But given that clothes became a symbolic dividing line during this State of the Union like seemingly never before — the members of the Congressional Black Caucus also expressed their point of view through their attire, with some wearing kente cloth and black outfits in reference to, and repudiation of, the president’s denigrating comment about Africa and Haiti this month — it’s hard to believe that the potential (and, indeed, probable) interpretations of her choice escaped the first lady.

但是，鉴于服装似乎前所未有地成了成为国情咨文发布会上的象征性分界线——国会黑人议员团(Congressional Black Caucus)的成员也通过服装表达了自己的观点，他们中的一些人穿着肯特布和黑色套装，暗指以及驳斥总统本月对非洲和海地的诋毁性评论——很难相信，第一夫人不知道自己所选服装的潜在(而且是非常有可能的)阐释。

Especially because during her husband’s address last year, Mrs. Trump came under fire very quickly for her choice of what was seen as a let-them-eat-cake black sequined Michael Kors suit, so she must know how much what she wears to this particular event matters. Especially because she has proved, over the last few months, perfectly cognizant of the way dress can be used as an implicit form of messaging, wearing red Dior for her trip to France for Bastille Day, and Dolce & Gabbana to the G-7 in Sicily.

尤其是考虑到，去年，特朗普夫人在丈夫发表讲话时身穿迈克高仕(Michael Kors)黑色亮片套装，让人想起“他们可以吃蛋糕呀”的轶事，很快引发批评，所以她应该知道，自己在这个场合的着装影响很大。还有，在过去的几个月里，她已经证明自己完全意识到，服装可以被用作传递信息的含蓄方式，所以她在赴法国参加巴士底日庆祝活动时身穿红色迪奥套装，在西西里岛的G-7会议上身穿杜嘉班纳(Dolce & Gabbana)的服装。

And especially given the almost elated reception that greeted her decision to wear a bright pink pussy bow blouse for an appearance during the campaign after her husband’s previous public sexual shaming, the “Access Hollywood” tape in which he made vulgar remarks about women. If she has paid any attention at all to public reaction (or if her team has), she cannot be ignorant of the fact that when she seems to use clothing as a subversive tool to suggest what she presumably cannot say, it provokes a groundswell of support.

尤其是考虑到，在竞选期间，在她丈夫之前的性别歧视言论曝光之后——特朗普在《走进好莱坞》(Access Hollywood)的录音带中发表了对女性的粗鲁言论——她决定身穿玫粉色蝴蝶领结衬衫亮相，引发了人们近乎兴高采烈的反应。如果她(或她的团队)稍微过留意公众的反应，那么她就不可能忽视这样一个事实：每当她似乎把服装作为一种颠覆性工具，表达她可能不能说的话时，都会受到热烈支持。

Though it was unclear at the time whether Mrs. Trump really understood the implications of that blouse choice, wearing a white suit to the State of the Union indicates that, indeed, she did. That when it comes to what she wears and what she means by it, she chooses her moments. Sometimes, such as at the Easter egg roll, it’s just about a pretty dress. But other times, as this time, her fashion is accessorized with a pointed subtext.

尽管我们当时不能确定，特朗普夫人是否真的明白选择那件衬衫暗含的意思，但这一次她身穿白色西服套装参加国情咨文发布会表明，当时她是知道的。在选择服装以及透过服装传递信息的时候，她精心选择了时机。有时候，比如在复活节滚彩蛋活动上，她只是选了一件漂亮的裙子。但在其他时候，比如这一次，她的服装带着尖锐的潜台词。

At the very least, it’s dangled as a tease to those who would like to think it could mean more.

至少，对于那些愿意认为这可能含有更多寓意的人来说，它是一种诱惑。

But taken together with the wardrobe choices of the Democrats and the Republicans, the first lady’s white suit was the final piece of what appeared to be an unprecedentedly politicized use of dress during a State of the Union. Indeed, Ivanka Trump, in understated plaid Oscar de la Renta, was one of the rare people in the room who didn’t seem to be using her clothes to communicate anything other than taking a back seat. The audience was theoretically supposed to be silent — the president was talking — but their clothes spoke for them. And they did it at a time when millions of viewers across the country were watching, and could read the message in the material. Why wait for the official rebuttals? They can start white now.

但是，如果综合考虑民主党人与共和党人的着装选择的话，那么第一夫人的白色套装可以说为国情咨文发布会上空前政治化的着装选择补上了最后一块拼图。的确，伊万卡·特朗普(Ivanka Trump)身穿朴素的奥斯卡-德拉伦卡(Oscar de la Renta)格子连衣裙，属于这个房间里少数几个似乎没有通过服装来传递信息的人之一——唯一传递的信息可能是保持低调。从理论上讲，听众应该是沉默的——因为总统在讲话——但他们的服装在代表他们发声。他们这样做的时候，美国有成千上百万的观众在观看，可以切实地领会到那些讯息。为什么要等待官方的反驳呢?他们现在就可以穿上白色。