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Rosy-cheeked and curvy, Madame de St.-Maurice smiles complacently on visitors to the 80WSE Gallery at New York University. The subject of a late-18th-century portrait by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, she flaunts multiple chins, her fleshy arms and bosom becomingly veiled in a demi-sheer frock.
面色红润、体态丰满的圣-莫里斯夫人(Madame de St.-Maurice)对着纽约大学(New York University)80WSE画廊(80WSE Gallery)的观众们得意地微笑。她是18世纪末约瑟夫·西弗尔·迪普莱西(Joseph Siffred Duplessis)描绘的对象，她炫耀着自己的双下巴以及巧妙隐藏在半透明连衣裙下的丰腴胳膊和胸部。
When the original canvas was exhibited, “it was praised for its truthfulness,” said Tracy Jenkins, the curatorial director of “Beyond Measure: Fashion and the Plus-Size Woman,” the new student exhibition showcasing the work. Sure the sitter was chubby. So what?
这幅原版油画在最近学生策划的展览“超越尺寸：时尚与特大号女人”(Beyond Measure: Fashion and the Plus-Size Woman)上展出。策展负责人特蕾西·詹金斯(Tracy Jenkins)说，“它的真实性得到了赞扬”。没错，画中的这个女人很胖。那又如何？
Flash-forward a couple of centuries, and Madame would as likely have been skewered, her frame regarded as an aesthetic, and perhaps even a moral, affront to polite society.
要是放到几个世纪之后，圣-莫里斯夫人很可能会遭到讥讽，她的体型会被认为是对上流社会审美观念乃至道德层面的冒犯。
That assumption is at the heart of this small but affecting exhibition, one that encompasses photographs, mannequins, video and advertising imagery. Organized by graduate students in the costume studies program at N.Y.U.’s Steinhardt School, the show, which runs though Feb. 3, goes some way toward demonstrating that fat shaming, with roots burrowing deep into the 19th century, was, and remains, a freighted issue.
这一假想是这场颇有感染力的小型展览的核心，它包括照片、人体模型、视频和广告图片。它是纽约大学斯坦哈特学院(Steinhardt School)服装研究专业的研究生们组织的，将持续到2月3日。这场展览在很大程度上表明，肥胖羞耻感曾是——如今依然是——一个沉重的话题，它的根源可以追溯到19世纪。
Portrayed in the popular postcards and ads of the late 19th and early 20th century as grotesque, unseemly and out of control, women of size are represented in the gallery by Nettie the Fat Girl, a sideshow attraction shown in an early-20th-century photograph as a bulbous, childlike creature, her tutu and inflated thighs all but bearing her aloft.
在19世纪末、20世纪初的热门明信片和广告中，胖女人被描绘成怪异、不得体、失控的女人。在这场展览中，那一时期胖女人的代表是马戏团的演员“胖姑娘妮蒂”(Nettie the Fat Girl)。在20世纪初的一张照片中，我们看到她像婴儿一样肥胖臃肿，她的芭蕾舞短裙和膨胀的大腿几乎能让她飘起来。
Today that image wouldn’t fly, supplanted, in the popular media at least, by “full figured” role models, among them the defiantly outsize performers Beth Ditto and Melissa McCarthy, Adele and the aggressively curvy Tess Holliday, touted on the cover of People last spring as the first size-22 supermodel.
如今，那样的形象飞不起来，而是至少在大众媒体上，被“丰满的”楷模所取代。比如体形庞大的艺人贝丝·迪托(Beth Ditto)、梅莉莎·麦卡锡(Melissa McCarthy)和阿黛尔(Adele)，以及非常丰满的特丝·霍利迪(Tess Holliday)。去年春天，霍利迪作为第一位衣服尺码为22号的超级模特招摇地登上《人物》杂志(People)的封面。
A tentative acceptance of full-figured models that dates from the early 1990s is highlighted in the exhibition by the emergence of Stella Ellis, known as the first large-size model, a divalike figure who strode Jean Paul Gaultier’s runway in 1992 and was featured in his ad campaign, billowy bosom exposed, hair piled high like an opera star’s.
这场展览还重点展示了20世纪90年代初人们对丰满模特的短暂接受。那一时期的代表人物是斯特拉·埃利斯(Stella Ellis)，她被称为首位大号模特。她是一个天后般的人物。1992年，她在让·保罗·高缇耶(Jean Paul Gaultier)的秀台上款款而行，并成为他的广告代言人——她显露出汹涌的胸部，头发像歌剧明星那样高高盘起。
There is, as well, the flowery frock worn in the 1930s by the actress Marie Dressler, and a recent video clip of the lavender-coiffed, unabashedly round Ashley Nell Tipton, the first “Project Runway” designer to win with a plus-size collection.
还有20世纪30年代穿着华丽长袍的女演员玛丽·德雷斯勒(Marie Dressler)，以及染着紫发、非常丰满的阿什莉·内尔·蒂普顿(Ashley Nell Tipton)前不久的视频片段。她是第一位凭借大号系列在“天桥骄子”节目(Project Runway)中获胜的设计师。
Still, progress has been halting.
不过，进步出现了停滞。
“Fat today is much less stigmatized, especially among younger people,” Ms. Jenkins allowed.
詹金斯承认，“如今，肥胖不再是那么耻辱的事，尤其在年轻人中。”
Outside, that is, the world of style.
不过，那说的是时尚界之外的世界。
“Fashion’s job is to exclude,” Ms. Jenkins said, adding pointedly, “Fashion is not accepting fat.”
詹金斯说，“时尚的职责是排外。”她尖锐地补充道：“时尚不接受肥胖。”
The show’s omissions make the case: Apart from the dress form draped in Dressler’s effusively feminine garment, and a pair of others showcasing items made from children’s Chubbies Patterns in the 1950s, there are no mannequins of heft — and no fashion to clothe them.
这场展览所没有展示的东西恰恰说明了这一点：除了展示德雷斯勒热情奔放、有女人味的裙子，以及20世纪50年代胖乎乎的儿童款式的东西之外，几乎没有肥胖的人体模型，也没有给它们穿的衣服。
Those are simply too hard to come by, as Ya’ara Keydar, a graduate student and an organizer of the show, explained. Ms. Keydar recalled that during a recent visit to an exhibition of historic evening dresses at the Sigal Museum in Easton, Pa., there was only one plus-size dress on display.
研究生雅拉·基达(Ya’ara Keydar)是这场展览的组织者之一。她解释道，那是因为很难弄到肥胖的人体模型。基达回忆说，前不久，她去宾夕法尼亚州伊斯顿的西加尔博物馆(Sigal Museum)观看一场关于历史上著名的晚礼服的展览，发现只有一件特大号晚装在展出。
“Those garments don’t get shown unless you’re someone famous, like Queen Victoria,” Ms. Jenkins said. Even in museums with dedicated costume wings, there is a bias, she said.
詹金斯说，“特大号服装除非被某个名人穿过，比如维多利亚女王，否则，没有展示的机会。”她说，就连那些有专门用于展示服装的侧馆的博物馆，也存在偏见。
On conventional runways and in print, a show of fat can still raise eyebrows, the show’s organizers argue, as a tacit breach of etiquette and, less commonly, as a transgressive gesture. It remains more of a taboo than race, age or class, Ms. Jenkins maintained. That is because, regardless of race, age or social standing, “a fashionable outline is still achievable,” Ms. Keydar said. “With a larger body, it is not.”
这场展览的组织者们说，在传统秀台和出版物上，展示肥胖仍会令人惊讶，被默认为是对礼仪的违背，甚至是某些情况下的侵犯行为。詹金斯认为，与种族、年龄或阶层相比，肥胖更是禁忌。基达说，那是因为，不同种族、年龄或社会地位的人，“都可能拥有时尚的外形”，但一个人“要是体形硕大，就不可能时尚了”。
There are notably few references to the F-word, “fat,” replaced in the show, as it is in the industry, by the euphemistic “plus size.”
很明显，展览中极少用到“胖”这个词，而是被委婉的说法“特大号”所替代，这也是时尚业的常规做法。
“‘Fat’ remains too charged a word,” Ms. Jenkins said. “Fashion has yet to come to terms with it” — or for that matter, with nonstandard sizing.
詹金斯说：“‘肥胖’这个词依然容易引起激烈反应。时尚界还没有接受它”——要做到这一点，就不能设定标准尺寸。
Images of plus-size runway models, in a slideshow first seen on the website Refinery29, reinforce her point: Models parade in their underwear, their random bumps and curves strategically covered and smoothed by padding.
一组特大号秀台模特的照片佐证了她的观点。那些照片首次出现是在Refinery29网站的一组幻灯里。照片中的模特们穿着内衣走秀，她们随意隆起的赘肉被巧妙地用衬料遮盖或掩饰。
The message? Ideal beauties they may be, “but even these women need improvements,” Ms. Keydar said.
这样做是要传达什么意思？基达说，意思就是，她们可能是完美的美女，“但是就算这些女人也需要改进“。
Among plus-size models, too, stringent standards apply. Smaller heads are preferred. “You don’t want to see a double chin,” Ms. Jenkins said. Banished as well: stretch marks, bat wings or what the British like to call those wobbly bits.
严格的标准也适用于特大号模特。头偏小的特大号模特更受欢迎。詹金斯说：“你不想看见双下巴。”同样遭到排斥的包括妊娠纹、蝴蝶肉或英国人所说的晃动的肉。
“There is just as much smoke and mirrors in plus-size fashion as in anything else,” Ms. Jenkins said.
詹金斯说：“特大号时尚也同样需要雾里看花。”
