爲了生活 我必須得有一百雙鞋
At even the most conservative estimate, I own about 100 pairs of shoes. I have smart high heels for taking taxi rides in and flat ones for walking in. I have elegant black ankle boots for looking-smart-but-still-being-able-to-walk in, and pointy little witchy shoes for embarrassing my daughter in.
按最保守的估計，我的鞋也有近百雙之多。我乘出租車時穿漂亮的高跟鞋，漫步時則穿平底鞋。我有既時尚又耐用的黑色漂亮短靴以及怪異的尖頭小鞋（着實讓我女兒羨煞不已）。
I own seven pairs of sneakers, two sets of wellington boots, four pairs of loafers and five lots of slippers. Some shoes are furnished with extraordinary, sculptural wedge-shaped heels, and others tipped with tiny stilettos. I own artisanal clogs that would befit a Quaker woodsmith, strappy snakeskin stilettos by Louis Vuitton and black-toed Chanel slingbacks that imbue the most banal of outfits with instant chic. I own Saint Laurent Patti Smith-style army boots, Marc Jacobs jackboots and a fabulous pair of banana-yellow boots from Céline with a fit so narrow they near give me a cardiac arrest each time I try and remove them.
我有七雙運動鞋、兩雙雨靴、四雙樂福鞋以及五雙拖鞋。有些鞋，帶有不同尋常的楔形雕花鞋跟，其它鞋則帶着細長的高跟。我還有手工打造的木屐鞋（它們適合貴格會(Quaker)木匠穿）、路易威登(Louis Vuitton)繫帶式蛇皮細高跟鞋以及香奈兒(Chanel)黑頭露跟鞋（最尋常的行頭配上它後也立顯高大上）。我有帕蒂.史密斯(Patti Smith)穿的那種聖羅朗(Saint Laurent)軍靴，馬克.雅可布(Marc Jacobs)的過膝軍用長統靴以及一雙美不勝收的Céline香蕉黃皮靴。這雙Céline靴子太緊了，以至於每次穿與脫都快讓我心跳停止。
The volume of shoes, and the creeping accumulation of their boxes, which are piled in stacked columns of teetering shoe-scrapers in every corner of the bedroom, are now the subject of considerable marital tension. The discussion usually begins with a question: “When are you going to do something about all these bloody shoes?” And ends with me arguing that excessive shoe ownership is, in fact, a job requirement. Which is facetious yet incontrovertible: if a fashion editor can’t own a stupidly tremendous number of shoes, then who the hell can?
大量的鞋加上越來越多的鞋盒（它們壘在臥室各個角落，堆成搖搖欲墜的“鞋樓”），如今成了我和老公關係極度緊張的源頭。我們夫妻的爭執通常從下列問題開始：“你打算如何處理這些該死的鞋？”爭執的結果是：我振振有詞地說這麼多鞋實在是自己工作所需。結論是，話糙理不糙：時尚編輯都沒有那麼多鞋，那麼到底誰還應該有？
And yet I concede. He does have a point. The bedroom does “look like a bedsit”, and the shoescrapers are entirely foul and ugly.
然而，我也得承認，老公言之有理。我們的臥室都快成客臥兩用房了，“鞋樓”既難聞又難看。
However — and I make this point in deadly earnest — I need them all. Every last pair. In the great everyday saga of getting dressed, the right shoe can make the difference between abject discomfort and a sense of pure infallibility. Nothing else can punctuate a look so efficiently — shoes are the semicolon, comma, exclamation mark and full stop of an outfit’s expression. Get a tiny detail wrong, a millimetre in heel height, the wrong toe shape, and everything looks off.
但是，我發自內心想說：我真的需要這些鞋。每一雙都有特定用場。在如今這個講究穿戴行頭的時代，穿鞋合適，是件大事，決定了自卑苦惱還是趾高氣揚。想要行之有效地突出自己形象，莫過於在意腳上的鞋款——它決定了整個行頭的效果差勁、一般、不錯還是無與倫比。細枝末節稍有不慎，比如腳跟的毫釐之差、鞋頭形狀不當，整體形象就會大打折扣。
As I collect clothes with the exact same enthusiasm I do footwear, my shoe needs have seemingly multiplied. This goes with that, but not this, goes with that, goes with this. I never seem to have quite the shoe that I need. And so, as a result, I’ve gotten lost in an acquisitional shoe spiral, endlessly picking up variations of the same thing in search of fashion’s holy grail — the ultimate footwear solution.
當我以堪比買鞋的熱忱購買衣服時，我對鞋的需求似乎一發而不可收了。這雙鞋只能配那套服裝，但配不了這套；這雙鞋既能配那套服裝，也能配這套服裝。我似乎永遠沒有理想的鞋。因此，我陷入不斷買鞋的惡性循環中而不能自拔，無休止地買進各式各樣的鞋，以圓心中的時尚聖夢——一雙理想的鞋。
It’s an issue that becomes even more urgent in winter, when coat lengths, hemlines and socks must be factored in. Winter shoes must traverse all kinds of environmental obstacles, and work with the seasonal trends. How does one balance the current crop of three-quarter-length culottes and midi-skirts, for example? What does one wear with a wide-legged tuxedo trouser so sweeping it collects autumnal debris in its wake? An over-the-knee silver stiletto boot by Balenciaga may work marvellously well with those bold-shouldered blazer shapes, but not without an accompanying chauffeur? I do not lie when I say that such dilemmas keep me awake at night.
到了冬季，選鞋尤爲重要，因爲此時大衣長度、裙子長度以及襪子都必須統籌考慮。冬鞋必須綜合考慮各種不利的環境因素，而且還得與時尚流行風相契合。比方說，如何取捨如今流行的七分裙褲(three-quarter-length culottes)與中長裙(midi skirts)？長款寬腿禮服褲（可以說褲卷殘雲）該與啥衣服搭配？巴黎世家(Balenciaga)的銀色過膝高跟靴也許與那些肩部醒目的運動上衣搭配效果最好，但沒有私人司機隨行是否會無此效果？我還是實話實說：權衡這種棘手問題讓我夜不能寐。
Hence, it is with no small degree of excitement to announce that I may have found the answer. The footwear solution of autumn 2016 is a knee-high, block-heeled, tan-coloured boot. It’s a practical go-with-anything colour. It’s chunky enough to bash through a normal working day but works really well with a dress, and it tilts towards this season’s 1970s trend without looking massively fashionable. The style first presented itself at the Etro show in Milan (at which I was, perversely, looking at clothes destined for the shops next February), where the models wore a sturdy gaucho boot with kasbah robes, kaftan silks and boiler suits. They looked cool, they looked comfortable, and the looks were always perfectly proportioned.
因此，當我宣稱可能找到了最理想的鞋時，激動之情真是難以言表。我爲2016年秋季選中的鞋就是棕褐色粗跟及膝靴。棕褐色可謂百搭色。厚實的鞋跟既能綽綽有餘地應付正常忙碌的工作日，又能恰如其分地搭配各種裙裝，而且它很好地因應了這個時裝季流行的上世紀70年代復古風格（同時又沒有時髦過頭）。這種款式首現於埃特羅(Etro)米蘭時裝週：模特腳穿結實耐用的高喬人皮靴(gaucho boot)，身穿北非風格的長袍、土耳其真絲長袍以及連體工作服在T型臺上走秀。這些裝束顯得既新潮又着眼，整體層次效果無與倫比。
The seed of an obsession was planted. And a short internet trawl later I found my boots at APC, the fantastic French fashion house at which one so often finds the things one really needs. This season, the store is selling an “Iris” boot (￡490), made in a thick, shiny conker-brown leather with a stacked square heel. I bought mine four weeks ago and haven’t taken them off since. They work with everything in my wardrobe and they never hurt. They weren’t cheap, but according to the fashion economy of cost-per-wear I reckon I’ll break even by Christmas.
自此，我可以說是爲鞋消得人憔悴。稍微瀏覽一下網絡，自己就在法國時尚名牌APC門店找到了心儀的鞋，這個網店通常能讓時裝愛好者滿足心願。這個時裝季，APC門店正熱銷“Iris”方形疊跟款皮靴（售價490英鎊），它由光亮厚實的深栗色(conker-brown)真皮打造而成。這雙皮靴與自己衣櫃的所有服飾都那麼般配，彼此交相輝映。皮靴價格不菲，但按照時裝經濟學的每次着裝成本衡量，我認爲到今年聖誕節自己就能穿夠本了。
Most importantly, the reason I know these boots are the solution is that every day I’ve worn them someone has approached me to ask where they’re from. Sartorial validation has been secured in every instance: the woman in the audience of a talk last week who rushed up afterwards; the fellow editor sat on the front row; the fashion designer who recalled owning something “just like that in the 1970s”.
最重要的是，我清楚這雙靴正中自己下懷的理由是：我每天穿着它上班時，總有人向我打聽它是從哪兒買的。自己選對這雙皮靴不斷有實例爲證：有位女聽衆在上週報告會後一再催問我皮靴的來源，坐在報告會前排的一位同行時尚編輯也是如此，某時裝設計師回憶自己上世紀70年代曾有一雙類似款式的“皮靴”。
Best of all, I’ve now been stopped five times (and counting) on the Tube to be asked about my boots. Smug? You bet I am. Not since I bought a pair of green suede pirate boots (from Schuh in 1999) has a single item in my possession invited so much attention.
最讓我得意的是：在地鐵上已有五人次（而且還在不斷增加）問及皮靴的賣處。感覺爽吧？當然囉。自本人1999年從Schuh門店購買一雙綠色山羊皮海盜靴以來，還沒有哪件行頭獲得如此高的關注度。
On the flipside, with the discovery of a solution, the shoescrapers are becoming daily more endangered, more likely than ever to be suddenly condemned. And so I’ve had to mix it up a bit to ensure a stay of execution. I may have found the ultimate winter footwear, but I still need all those shoes.
另一方面，淘到理想的鞋後，家裏壘起的“鞋樓”的處境越來越不妙，遭遇“突然處理”的概率越來越高。所以嘛，我不得不間或穿穿它們，以延緩這些鞋“退出江湖”的日期。我最終也許能淘到理想的冬鞋，但目前我仍需要這些鞋發揮餘熱。
