YEARS AGO, I WAS just like any other fashion-loving teenager. When I wasn't wearing my school uniform, I relished all that fashion had to offer: color, texture, style, the chance to shape-shift. I experimented with my grandmother's clothes and fantasized about the day I'd be able to afford the outfits I saw in Vogue.

多年前当我还是个少年人，我和其他孩子一样热爱时尚。只要不用穿校服，我就会恣意品味时尚带给我的一切：颜色、质地、样式以及改头换面的机会。我用祖母的衣服体验时尚、幻想著有一天能买得起《Vogue》杂志里的服饰。

As I moved into college, I became known for my sense of style, often eliciting the ambiguous compliment 'only you can pull that off.' I was totally mad for clothes. I loved the hunt and just the general delight of dressing up. It never once occurred to me that there could be any negative consequences to my fashion addiction--other than a semi-bulging closet. Even during graduate school, when I started to read all sorts of books on costume history, fashion and feminism, it didn't occur to me to fully explore the ramifications of my clothing consumption.

进了大学之后，我开始因为自己的时尚品味而变得小有名气，经常会赢得诸如“只有你能穿出这件衣服的味道”这样的褒奖。我完全为衣装而疯狂。我喜欢四处搜罗时装、热爱穿上后那种全身心的愉悦感。我从未想过我对时尚的痴迷会有怎样的负面后果――除了一个被挤得满满当当的衣橱。甚至等我上了研究生、开始读各类关于服装史、时尚和女权主义的书籍时，我还是没有想到去彻底了解服装消费背后的细枝末节。

There was never a clear turning point, but rather a slowly mounting pile of information and intuitions that finally made me see that maybe there was something worth investigating. I now teach ethics to fashion students in New York, and over the past several years I have witnessed a convergence of factors--including the tragic building collapse last year of the garment factory in Bangladesh--that have brought the issue to the forefront.

我后来也并非是在某个具体时刻突然顿悟的，而是随着获取的信息量慢慢增多、直觉逐渐增强，我终于发现也许有些东西真值得我去研究。我现在在纽约给时尚专业的学生教授伦理学课。在过去的几年中我目睹了一系列的事件、包括去年孟加拉一家服装加工厂厂房倒塌的悲剧，这些事情把上述问题推到了台前。

The moral neutrality of fashion is being questioned, from the ramifications of outsourced manufacturing to questions regarding a livable wage across dramatically different cultures. The scourge of eating disorders and body-image issues that plague women, young and old, is difficult to ignore. There are also environmental issues: air pollution, textile waste, toxic dyes and excessive energy usage. And the multibillion-dollar counterfeiting industry has been raising very real questions about intellectual property.

时尚的道德中立性正在被从各个方面拷问，诸如服装制造业外包的后果、对于不同社会间基本生活收入水平的疑问等等。又是什么让各种年龄段的女性备受饮食紊乱、身材外貌问题的困扰，痛苦之源很难被忽视。还有环境方面的问题：空气污染、纺织废弃物、毒性染料和过度的能源消耗。另外，规模达数十亿美元之巨的制假产业给知识产权保护提出了非常现实的问题。

Many people in the industry itself are exhausted by the rate of the production, pleading for a slower pace. Creativity is spent, fast fashion is king and while everyone has too many clothes to manage, we all have nothing to wear.

时尚行业本身有很多人已经被生产的高速率搞得筋疲力尽，纷纷呼吁放慢脚步。创造性被消耗、快时尚(fast fashion)称王称霸。虽然每个人的衣服都多得不知该如何处理，但真要穿时却没有东西可穿。

So what's a fashion-loving, ethically minded person to do? While I applaud those who are able to reduce their sartorial vocabulary to a few quality, sustainably made uniforms, I realize that's not for everyone. I, for one, am not ready to abandon all variety for a diet of black smocks. So, here are four principles to help guide an ethical perspective on fashion.

因此热爱时尚、又看重伦理道德的人应该怎样做呢？有些人能够把服饰选择范围缩小到少数几种高品质、制造方式环保可持续的样式，我很赞赏这样的人，但我知道这并非适用于每一个人。像我就不打算放弃千姿百态的服饰、只穿黑色衣服。这里有四条原则能帮助你从道德的角度看待时尚。

1. Give up the lie of cheap fashion

1. 远离廉价时尚的谎言

Clothing costs something to make. In fact, it costs a lot to make if the laborers are paid a fair wage, the fabric is high quality and the design is good. As long as we continue to take it for granted that a T-shirt should cost as much as a latte, all is lost. But if we can shift our perspective to see that clothing should be quality and that quality costs, we may get somewhere. If people stopped with the excess of cheap, they might in fact have more money to afford quality items.

生产衣服是有成本的。实际上，在保证制衣工人拿到合理薪水、制作面料上乘、服装设计出色这三个条件的情况下，衣服的生产成本是非常之高的。只要我们还继续想当然地认为一件T恤的成本就应该和一杯拿铁咖啡差不多，那么上述三样东西都会失去。不过，如果我们转变观念，承认衣服也应该有品质，而这种品质是有成本的，我们就会有所收获。如果人们的廉价服装总是过多过剩，这说明他们其实是有更多的钱可以负担高品质服装的。

2. Be an informed consumer

2. 做个聪明的消费者

Clothing manufactures gain nothing by telling us where and how clothes are made. It is up to us as individual consumers to learn how pieces are designed, what quality fabrics look and feel like, and why clothes made in Bangladesh probably aren't using fair labor practices. My grandmother's generation was taught to care about quality. Today, caring involves a re-education when it comes to what your favorite labels practice behind the seams.

告诉消费者服装是在哪里、如何生产出来的对于服装制造企业而言一点好处也没有。作为个人消费者，我们要自己去了解服装是如何被设计出来的、纤维织物看上去是什么样、手感如何、为什么服装在孟加拉生产的时候可能会有违规用工问题。我祖母那一代接受的教育是要关心品质。如今，关心你最喜欢的品牌背后的故事其实是一种再教育。

3. Dress for your lifestyle

3. 选择适合你生活方式的穿着

We each have to struggle through the particulars of our own life context. So what does it mean to dress for yourself? It means you recognize your financial limitations and do not buy clothes on credit. (Hello, 'Confessions of a Shopoholic'!) It means dressing for comfort and functionality.

我们每个人都不得不在自己特殊的生活轨迹上拼搏。因此，为你自己而穿意味着什么呢？它意味着你要认识到自己的财力局限，不要为了买衣服欠债。（你好，《一个购物狂的自白》 (Confessions of a Shopoholic) ！）。它意味着你的衣服要舒适实用。

I distinctly remember the moment, a few months after moving to New York, I realized that all the fancy high heels I had brought with me--part of what I thought life in NYC would demand--did me no good if I wasn't being picked up by a driver and dropped off right at my destination. I needed shoes that fit with my life and that life now involved walking. Dressing for yourself also means eschewing ridiculous, unattainable body standards and wearing what makes you feel confident and comfortable in your own body.

我还清楚地记得在我搬到纽约的几个月后，我意识到我带来的所有漂亮高跟鞋（其中一些还被我看作纽约生活的必备品）根本不适合我，因为我没有司机接送我直达目的地。我得走很多路，我需要适合我这种生活的鞋。为自己而穿还意味着别去理会那些荒谬、难以企及的身材标准，选择那些让你感到自信和舒服的衣服。

4. Remember you are free

4. 记住你是自由的

Sometimes it feels like consumerism is a force so big we can't opt out. But ultimately, fashion is a game we choose to play. Realize that you are in control of whose gaze counts to you. In freedom, you get to evaluate the rules of the game before you let the rules make a fashion victim out of you.

有时候，消费至上的观念是如此强烈，让我们无路可逃。不过说到底，时尚就是一个我们自己选择的游戏。要意识到你是选择的主宰。作为一个自由的人，你要在让游戏规则把你变成时尚牺牲品之前自己评判一下这些规则。

Ethicists talk about the inevitable striving that ethical behavior requires. Virtue, for Aristotle, commanded overriding an innate desire to act in one way through rationality and a sense of duty to the betterment of society. Interestingly, this virtue was attained through imitating virtuous role models. As fashion is a phenomenon that spreads through the power of imitation, hopefully we can start a trend of thinking mindfully and ethically about our purchases.

伦理学家认为，道德行为的形成需要人不懈努力、这个过程无法省去。而在亚里士多德(Aristotle)看来，美德需要超越本性需求、通过理性行事，需要一种以改善社会为己任的责任感。有趣的是，这种美德是通过模仿道德模范来实现的。既然时尚是一种通过模仿的力量进行传播的现象，我们就有希望兴起一种新的流行趋势，让大家都能审慎地从道德层面思考我们的购买决定。