To the Billboard Music Awards a week ago, Jennifer Lopez bared most of her stomach and the undersides of her breasts in a creation by … hmm, let me look that up.
一周前，在《公告牌》(Billboard)音乐奖的颁奖礼上，詹妮弗·洛佩兹(Jennifer Lopez)露出腹部的大半以及乳房的下侧，这件礼服的设计者是……呃，让我查查。
At the Met Gala on May 4, Ms. Lopez, Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian West were the three fanny-flaunting Furies, in gowns whose designers don’t immediately spring to mind, though I do remember the violent hitching gesture with which Ms. Lopez adjusted hers in the Temple of Dendur before dinner, as if to ensure those few parts of hers still private remained so.
在5月4日的大都会艺术博物馆慈善晚宴(Met Gala)上，洛佩兹、碧昂斯(Beyoncé)和金·卡戴珊·韦斯特(Kim Kardashian West)穿得像是妖娆的复仇女神三姐妹。人们一下子想不起这些礼服的设计者，不过我的确记得，在丹铎神庙参加晚宴前洛佩兹猛拉衣服的动作，好像是为了确保她身上仅有的几处隐私部位没有走光。

And at the annual awards presentation of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, to take place Monday, June 1, at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center (O tempora! O mores!), we can surely expect more, or less, of same.
6月1日（周一），美国时装设计师协会(Council of Fashion Designers of America)在林肯中心的爱丽丝·杜莉音乐厅(Alice Tully Hall)举办年度颁奖礼。我们肯定能看到类似的礼服（略微保守或更暴露一点的）。
It was there, a year ago, that Rihanna started the current rage for the so-called “naked look,” with a body stocking noted more for the manufacturer of the crystals that adorned it, the inescapable Swarovski, than its designer, Adam Selman.
一年前，就是在那里，蕾哈娜(Rihanna)掀起了目前所谓的“透视装”狂潮。她的礼服像一条全身长筒袜，礼服上装饰的施华洛世奇水晶（这个品牌简直无处不在）比礼服的设计者亚当·塞尔曼(Adam Selman)更引人注目。
At least one stylist, Anita Patrickson, who has worked with the model Chanel Iman and the actress Julianne Hough, decried this new standard. “It’s great if you’re doing a theatrical live show and the dancers are wearing it, but when you think back to Grace Kelly waltzing along the red carpet, it seems such a shame,” Ms. Parkinson said in a telephone interview.
至少有一位造型师谴责了这种新标准，那就是安妮塔·帕特里克森(Anita Patrickson)。她曾担任模特夏奈尔·伊曼(Chanel Iman)和女演员朱莉安娜·霍夫(Julianne Hough)的造型师。“如果是在一场夸张的现场表演中，舞者们穿这样的戏服，那是很棒的选择，但是如果回想一下格蕾丝·凯利(Grace Kelly)轻盈走过红毯的情景，你会觉得现在这种潮流真是可耻，”帕特里克森在电话采访中说。
Even she, though, recently put Michelle Rodriguez in a black tentacled back-barer by Zuhair Murad, a specialist in such things, for the “Mad Max: Fury Road” premiere at Cannes, where actresses have long simulated Venus emerging naked from the half-shell.
不过，就连她前不久也让米歇尔·罗德里格斯(Michelle Rodriguez)在参加《疯狂的麦克斯：狂暴之路》(Mad Max: Fury Road)的戛纳首映时穿上祖海尔·穆拉德(Zuhair Murad)设计的黑色紧身露背装。穆拉德是设计这类服装的专家。长久以来，很多女演员都曾在戛纳模仿过从半边贝壳中出现的裸体维纳斯。
By encasing themselves in such creations — I wouldn’t go so far as to call them dresses — in the more formal, urban precincts of museums and concert halls, these celebrities are flaunting their bodies, to state the obvious (most impressively so in the case of those older than 40).
显而易见，这些名人在正式的城市场所里（比如博物馆和音乐厅）穿这样的东西（我不想称它们为服装）是在炫耀自己的身体（对40岁以上的人来说，更是如此）。
They are also neatly subverting the product placement that has dominated the red carpet for the last 20 years or so, since screams and flashbulbs drown out all of the now-automatic branding burps.
她们还彻底颠覆了20年来主导红毯的植入性广告，因为尖叫声和闪光灯淹没了所有如今人们习以为常的品牌宣传。
They are obviating the automatic question, “Who are you wearing?” Indeed, they are obviating speech. Silent, statue-like, the semi-clad are taking back the night from the global conglomerates that have so voraciously seized parties and galas as prime marketing opportunities.
她们避开了那个常见的问题：“你穿的是谁设计的礼服？”她们实际上避开了交谈。她们如雕塑一般，不言不语，半裸着身体。她们把派对和晚宴从国际集团的手中夺了回来，那些集团贪婪地把这些活动视为市场推广的绝佳机会。
And they are seeking to place themselves in a bombshell pantheon led not by Ms. Kelly but by Marilyn Monroe, who sang “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” in a basted-on stretch of illusion fabric that few could tell you was made by the costume designer Jean Louis, though it sold for $1.15 million plus commission at auction in 1999.
她们努力在性感尤物的殿堂里占据一席之地，这个殿堂的领袖不是格蕾丝·凯利，而是玛丽莲·梦露(Marilyn Monroe)。她演唱“生日快乐，总统先生”时，身穿一件完全贴合身体曲线的礼服，礼服的质地容易让人产生错觉。几乎无人知道那件礼服的设计者是让·路易斯(Jean Louis)，不过在1999年的一次拍卖会上，那件衣服以115万美元的价格售出（不含佣金）。
Ms. Monroe certainly loved the camera and was known to pore carefully over portrait proof sheets. But one cannot imagine her indulging, as Ms. West did recently, in a 445-page book consisting entirely of selfies and distributed (I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “published”) by Rizzoli.
梦露当然很喜欢相机，众所周知，她总是仔细查看自己照片的校样。不过，你很难想象她会沉迷其中，就像卡戴珊不久前做的那样，通过里佐利出版社(Rizzoli)发行（我不想称之为“出版”）了一本全是自拍照的长达445页的影集。
This book, titled “Selfish,” has been heralded as “riveting” by Laura Bennett at Slate; Jerry Saltz of New York magazine compared it with apparent sincerity to Karl Ove Knausgaard’s “My Struggle.”
那本影集名为《自私》(Selfish)。《纪事》杂志(Slate)的劳拉·贝内特(Laura Bennett)在新书预告中称赞它“引人入胜”。《纽约》杂志(New York)的杰里·萨尔兹(Jerry Saltz)真心诚意地将它与卡尔·奥韦·诺斯加德(Karl Ove Knausgaard)的《我的奋斗》(My Struggle)相提并论。
With all due respect to such critics, this is poppycock.
尽管我对这些批评家很是敬重，但我还是得说，简直是胡扯。
“Selfish” may as well be called “Surface.” Like Madonna’s “Sex” more than 20 years ago, which came quaintly wrapped in Mylar (and at least featured someone who went through the motions of dancing, singing and acting rather than just posing), it is a feat of packaging and persistence, nothing more. It does not so much suggest Venus as Narcissus, drowning in his Photo Stream. And it is about as engrossing, and as meritorious, as the accountant’s spreadsheet it is enriching.
《自私》可以改名为《肤浅》(Surface)。就像20多年前麦当娜(Madonna)的《性》(Sex)一样——那本影集很奇怪地裹着聚酯薄膜（至少她是在跳舞、唱歌、表演，而不仅仅是摆姿势）——它是包装和执着的杰作，仅此而已。它不是把维纳斯比作顾影自怜的那喀索斯(Narcissus)，淹死在自己的照片流里，而是在表现这些照片像会计师的电子表格一样引人入胜，值得赞扬，寓意丰富。