While vacationing in the Bahamas earlier this year, Zac Posen posted a couple of sunset snaps to his Instagram account — and each one drew more than 6,000 “likes.”
今年早些时候，扎克·珀森于巴哈马度假期间，在Instagram上贴了几张落日的快照，每张都收到了6000多个“赞”。
“Immediately my followers were asking to see a print in those hues,” the designer said. “So I worked with my team to digitalize the print and blow it up on a crepe de Chine.” The resulting cerulean and pink silk became a maxi dress in the ZAC Zac Posen spring 2015 collection.
“后来很快就有关注我的人想看用这些色彩印成的图案，”这位设计师说。“所以我和团队就把图案数码化，并且放大印刷在双绉纱上。”最后他们用这款天蓝与粉红的丝绸制成了扎克·扎克·珀森(ZAC Zac Posen)2015年春夏时装系列中的一件长裙。

Mr. Posen, who has more than 640,000 Instagram followers, describes the online feedback from fans and customers as essential to his design process. “Through the comments and pictures, we get a new perspective about our creations,” he said.
珀森在Instagram上有64万个关注者，他说粉丝和客户在网络上的反馈对于自己的设计来说非常重要。“通过评论和图片，我们可以用新的视角去审视作品，”他说。
There was a time when a fashion designer’s inspiration came from a journey to Rajasthan, the Serengeti or perhaps the Russian steppes, along with feedback from buyers and the occasional client. Now, it’s more likely to be a speedy trip through some online sites, with followers as traveling companions. As Clare Waight Keller of Chloé observed: “A mood board that would have taken a few weeks of solid research now can be assembled in an afternoon on Instagram.”
曾几何时，服装设计师们到拉贾斯坦邦、塞伦盖蒂平原或俄罗斯大草原之类地方旅行，以图寻找灵感，并从买手或偶尔从客户那里求得反馈。如今浏览几个网站就像是做了一次快速旅行，而关注者们就像是旅伴。正如蔻依(Chloé)的克莱尔·维特·凯勒(Clare Waight Keller)所说，“过去做时装设计的情绪板(mood board)需要几个星期的切实调研，如今花一下午从Instagram上搜罗素材就可以了。”
The fashion industry’s pace today has made it hard to find time for travel beyond the virtual kind, Ms. Waight Keller said, with exploratory trips and gallery visits increasingly difficult to squeeze into the dizzying demand for collections. For example, as creative director at Chloé and See By Chloé, she oversees the creation of eight collections a year, including resort and prefall.
维特·凯勒说，如今时装界的步调令设计师们很难有时间去进行真实的旅行，系列设计的需求让人晕头转向，想挤出时间做探索和考察、逛美术馆变得愈来愈困难。就拿她本人来说，身为蔻依和丝蔻（See By Chloe，蔻依的副牌——编注）的创意总监，她每年要监制八个系列，包括一个度假系列和一个早秋系列。
“When I started out, being a great researcher was part of your arsenal as a designer. You had to be resourceful and to have knowledge, you had to visit libraries, meet with textile dealers and actually discover stuff,” said Ms. Waight Keller, who describes her own method as a mix of “digital and pre-Internet approaches.”
维特·凯勒表示： “我刚起步的时候，做一个出色的调研者也是设计师的重要方法之一。你得拥有很多资源和知识，得去图书馆、会见面料经销商，还要自己去发现素材。”她说自己目前的方式就像是混合了“数码方式与前互联网时代的方式”。
And while she admits that Instagram can be “mesmerizing,” she worries that reflection and research skills are being bypassed in favor of quick but superficial browsing online. “Often when I’m asked to judge projects at art schools, it’s clear that everything comes from a Google search and too often the results lack any depth,” she said.
她承认Instagram很“迷人”，也担心在当今快速而肤浅的网络浏览趋势之下，思考与研究的习惯正在为人们所忽略。“在艺术学校，我经常被要求评判学生设计的项目，显然所有东西都是用谷歌搜索来的，这种结果通常缺乏深度，”她说。
Erdem Moralioglu has seen his business grow alongside the rise of digital technology and social media: Twitter debuted in 2006, the same year Erdem did during London Fashion Week.
艾尔丹姆·莫拉里奥格鲁(Erdem Moralioglu)认为自己的企业是随着数码科技与社交媒体的崛起一同成长的：2006年出现了Twitter，同年，艾尔丹姆品牌登陆伦敦时装周。
The London-based designer says he routinely scours Tumblr, and checks Instagram obsessively. “Instagram has definitely filtered into my approach to design; I love the idea of curated images, the idea of juxtaposing images that don’t connect — it’s a way of finding obscure things,” he said, citing Xavier Dolan, a Montreal film director; Michel Gaubert, the Paris-based D.J. and producer; Grace Coddington; and Sotheby’s as his current Instagram favorites.
这位伦敦设计师说，自己每天都要浏览Tumblr，还要强迫症般地检查Instagram。“毫无疑问，Instagram已经渗入我的设计方式；我喜欢收集图像、把不相关的图像放在一起——这样可以发现模糊隐蔽的事物。”他表示，蒙特利尔导演泽维尔·多兰(Xavier Dolan)、巴黎DJ与制作人米凯尔·戈贝尔(Michel Gaubert)、格蕾丝·科丁顿(Grace Coddington)以及苏富比拍卖行的Instagram是他目前最喜欢的账户。
But Mr. Moralioglu said such social media rambles remained a “secondary resource” for inspiration.
但莫拉里奥格鲁也说，漫游社交媒体仍然只是灵感的“二手资源”。
“The thing with social media is that it can become a bit of a vortex that sucks you in and suddenly the afternoon is gone,” he said. “I still find looking at something ‘real’ sharpens my creative focus.” So the initial sparks for his spring 2015 ready-to-wear collection came from a trip to Kew Gardens to see the paintings of the Victorian botanist Marianne North and a “back to front” silk gazar fabric that he spotted at Première Vision, the textile trade show in Paris.
“社交媒体的问题在于，它可以成为一股把你吸进去的漩涡，突然之间，整个下午就消磨过去了，”他说。“我仍然觉得，观察某些‘真实’的东西可以令自己的创意关注点更加敏锐。”所以，他的2015春夏成衣系列最初的灵感是来自去英国皇家植物园旅游的经历，他在那里看到维多利亚时期植物学家玛丽安娜·诺斯(Marianne North)的绘画作品；此外灵感还来自他在巴黎“第一视觉”面料展上看到的一种“被反挂着”的、饰有金属亮片的透明丝绸织物。
For designers, the distinction between social media’s function as a communication tool and as a creative resource has become blurry, said Rachel Arthur, a fashion trend forecaster at WGSN in New York who specializes in digital developments. “We’re getting to a point where marketing and design go hand-in-hand, especially in the U.S. where designers have to be super-commercial,” she said. “Yes, creativity is paramount, but the vision of the designer has to marry with where you see your customer. It’s about listening.”
纽约WGSN公司专门负责数码潮流发展的的时尚预报者瑞秋·阿瑟(Rachel Arthur)说，设计师们既把社交媒体作为交流工具，也用它寻找创意灵感，二者之间的界限很模糊。“在目前的阶段，市场与设计密不可分，特别是在美国，所以设计师们都得特别有商业头脑，”她说。“是的，创作是至高无上的，但设计师的想法必须同客户的需求结合。这关乎倾听。”
For example, the Proenza Schouler designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez claimed Tumblr as a point of reference for their spring 2013 collection, citing the social media platform’s unexpected juxtapositions of imagery and all-but-infinite content.
比如，普罗恩萨·施罗(Proenza Schouler)的设计师杰克·麦克卢尔(Jack McCollough)与拉扎洛·赫南德兹(Lazaro Hernandez)说，他们2013春夏系列的设计就从Tumblr上得到了灵感，并说社交媒体平台出人意料地将想像力与无穷无尽的内容融为一体。
The technological change also challenges old ideas about the designer as lone artist. “Fashion needs to start listening and start sharing,” said Julie Anne Quay, founder of the fashion social network VFiles, which has 60,000 users. “If you look at our news feed there are images by Meisel and Testino, but there are also images by a 16-year-old style blogger in Ukraine and a new designer from Korea. They are all in the same place, no one has any hierarchy over each other. That’s what fashion looks like now.”
技术的变革也挑战了那种将设计师视为孤独艺术家的旧观念。“时尚界需要开始倾听和分享了，”时尚社交媒体网站VFiles的创始人朱莉·安妮·奎伊(Julie Anne Quay)说，该网站目前有六万名用户。“我们的新闻推送里有梅塞尔(Meisel)和特斯迪诺(Testino)拍摄的照片，但也有16岁的乌克兰时尚博客写手与韩国新锐设计师的作品。他们都在同一个平台上，没有凌驾于他人之上的等级观念。现在的时尚就是这个样子。”
Rebecca Minkoff, a New York designer who has been quick to embrace digital developments, said she feels there still is a distinction between crowdsourcing — creation through online collaboration — and using social media as a sounding board. “For me, it’s about understanding a trend,” she said, “so if my Instagram followers are really into wide-leg pants, that definitely feeds into the design process.”
纽约设计师丽贝卡·敏科夫(Rebecca Minkoff)很快就接受了数码科技的发展，她认为，把社交媒体视为大众资源——即通过在网络上收集的素材进行创作，以及使用社交媒体作为宣传工具，二者之间还是有区别的。“对于我来说，重要的是理解潮流，”她说，“所以，如果我Instagram上的关注者们真的喜欢阔腿裤，这种趋势肯定会反馈到设计过程中去。”
Actually, she added, presenting her creations on social media also has become a design consideration. “People are manipulating photos to show their best self,” Ms. Minkoff said. “That’s influenced me to think about how a piece will photograph, whether the colors are saturated enough to withstand filters, and how print will translate.”
事实上，她还说，把自己的作品在社交媒体上展示也成了设计决策的一部分。“人们调整、修改照片，呈现自己最好的一面，”敏科夫说，“这也影响了我，去思考一件作品应当怎样去拍摄，色彩的饱和度是否适合滤镜，印出的成品又将如何转换呈现。”
Rebecca Arnold, a lecturer in fashion history at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, believes that the job of a fashion designer is at a pivotal moment: “Right now you have designers who are adapting, rather than people who have grown up with this technology; it will be interesting to see what happens with the next generation.”
伦敦考陶尔德艺术学院的时装史讲师丽贝卡·阿诺德(Rebecca Arnold)认为，时装设计师这一工作目前正处于转折点：“现在的设计师是在努力适应环境，而并不是随着这种技术一起成长，下一代的情况会非常有趣。”
And part of the shift will be designing for a millennial customer who also has grown up with social media, she added.
她还说，这种变迁也是为千禧一代客户所打造，这一代也是同社交媒体一起成长的。
Considering recent collections, Dr. Arnold said that the “visual collage of cultural references” used by the Marc by Marc Jacobs designers Luella Bartley and Katie Hillier were a “savvy digital response” to the Instagram generation.
至于最近的时装系列，阿诺德博士说，马克·雅克布之马克(Marc by Marc Jacobs)品牌的设计师卢埃拉·巴特利(Luella Bartley)和凯蒂·希尔里尔(Katie Hillier)那种“有文化指涉的视觉拼贴”是对Instagram一代“颇具见地的数码回应”。