旧裙新义
They marched in President Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration parade.
她们参加了巴拉克·奥巴马总统2009年的就职游行。
They appeared at processions ranging from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City and Disney's Easter Parade in Orlando, Fla., to the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, Calif.
从纽约市的梅西感恩节游行到佛罗里达州奥兰多的迪斯尼复活节游行，再到加利福尼亚州帕萨迪纳市举行的玫瑰碗游行，她们都出现在游行队伍中。
They are the Azalea Trail Maids — the embodiment of old school Southern hospitality with a modern twist.
她们是杜鹃花道女佣-老派南方人的热情加上现代特色的化身。
Photographer Adair Rutledge, a native of Mobile, Ala., returned to her hometown to learn more about how some girls are redefining what it means to be a symbol of the South — while they wear a 50-pound, custom-made antebellum dress.
摄影师阿黛尔·拉特利奇是阿拉巴马州莫比尔人，她回到家乡后，想了解更多关于一些女孩如何重新定义南方人的象征——她们穿上了50磅重的战前定制连衣裙。
To be one of the 50 Azalea Trail Maids, you have to be chosen — and only those with impressive resumes get the honor.
要成为50名杜鹃花道女佣之一，你必须参加选拔——只有那些有令人印象深刻的简历的人才能获此殊荣。
The girls Rutledge profiled were valedictorians, National Merit Scholarship winners and even in ROTC.
拉特利奇拍摄的这些女孩分别是毕业演讲家、国家优秀奖学金获得者，甚至是后备役军官训练队的成员。
And the interview process is extensive.
面试是很全面的。
"A lot of them take classes and rehearse for years," Rutledge says.
“她们中很多人都会去上课，并且经过多年的排练，”拉特利奇说道。
The selective process and preparation is meant to prepare them to be ambassadors for their town — a modern version of the Southern belle.
选拔和准备过程都是为了把她们打造成自己家乡的形象大使——现代版的南方淑女。
Once chosen, they represent Mobile for a year.
一旦入选，她们可以担任一年的大使。
When wearing the dresses, which can cost up to $6,000, they usually don't speak; their duty is to smile, wave and have their photo taken.
当穿着价值高达6000美元的礼服时，她们通常不会说话;他们的职责是微笑、挥手和拍照。
Rutledge hopes her project will help people work through what seem like contradictions: very accomplished women wearing Southern plantation-era gowns while representing Alabama's third-largest city.
拉特利奇希望她的照片能帮助人们适应一些看似矛盾的问题:穿着南方种植园时代的大裙子、同时又代表阿拉巴马州第三大城市的多才多艺的女性。
"There's sort of a disconnect between what the dress represents historically and these multicultural, highly accomplished modern young women who wear it now," she says.
她说:“从历史上看，这条裙子所代表的含义与如今穿着它的这些多元文化、成就卓著的现代年轻女性之间存在某种脱节。”
"They're not exact replicas, but they are modeled after the attire of the white Southern plantation-era elite, which means that they are the gowns that were once worn by the wives of slave owners. ... I really want people to be asking these questions around gender and identity and race and the tensions that are created from being a young Southern black woman wearing an antebellum hoop skirt."
“它们不是完全的复制品，但它们是模仿南方种植园时代白人精英的服装，也就是说，它们是奴隶主妻子曾经穿过的长袍。...我真的想让人去关注到问这些关于性别、身份、种族的问题，以及作为一名穿着战前箍裙的年轻南方黑人女性所带来的冲击。”
But it is also important to see each Trail Maid as their own person, Rutledge says.
拉特利奇说，同样重要的是，要把每个杜鹃花道女佣看作是他们自己人。
"With this project I looked at not just the tradition, but the girls that operate within the tradition and who they are as individuals," she added, giving the example of one Trail Maid who switches from wearing the dress to putting on an ROTC uniform on a daily basis.
“通过这个项目，我不仅看到了传统，还看到了在传统中运作的女孩们，以及她们作为个体的个性，”她补充道，还举了一个例子，一个花道女佣每天都要从穿裙子变成穿后备军官训练队制服。
And just like how the tradition has changed throughout time, so has the meaning of the dress.
就像传统随着时间的推移而改变一样，服装的意义也在改变。
One of the biggest changes to the Trail Maids over the past 50 years is the group welcoming different races.
在过去的50年里，步道女仆最大的变化之一就是开始欢迎不同种族的团体。
Rutledge says there are no official records of when the first black girl was part of the Azalea Trail Maids, but from conversations she's had with older generations and looking at photos, she guesses it was around the 1970s.
拉特利奇说，关于第一个黑人女孩何时成为杜鹃花步道女佣的尚无官方记录，但从她与老一辈人的交谈和照片来看，她猜测那是在20世纪70年代左右。
Some of the black Trail Maids explained to Rutledge how they changed the narrative and took back a tradition that was once off limits to them.
一些黑人花道女佣向拉特利奇解释了她们是如何改写了历史，让曾经不招黑人的传统发生变化的。
"I tried out for Trail for all the little black girls who wanted a dress like that, but they were slaves and they couldn't have one," Kaycee Tate, valedictorian of her high school graduating class, told Rutledge.
“我去花道面试是为了那些想穿这样的裙子，但因为她们是奴隶而没法穿的人，”凯西·泰特告诉拉特利奇，她曾是高中毕业班致告别辞的学生代表。
"If you were to tell a little black girl who was picking cotton, you know back in the day, 'Hey, in a few hundred years maybe you'll get to wear a dress like that too,' no one would believe you. So I'm kind of a testament to times have changed."
“如果你告诉一个摘棉花的黑人小女孩，你知道，在过去的日子里，'嘿，再过几百年，也许你也会穿那样的裙子’，没有人会相信你。所以我可以说是时代变迁的见证者。”
Jamie Lim, a Korean American who was previously a Trail Maid, wrote her college essay on wanting to be part of the organization because she hadn't seen many who looked like her represented in the group.
杰米林是一名韩裔美国人，之前也是一名花道女佣，她在大学时写过一篇论文，内容是想成为这个组织的一员，因为她在这个组织中没有见过很多像她这样的人。
Rutledge stressed that through the tensions, for all the girls, this custom is about friendship and camaraderie.
拉特利奇强调，对于所有的女孩来说，这种习俗是关于友谊和友情的。
Her photos show this — from a picture of a few girls taking a selfie to one of a group hanging out at Waffle House.
她的照片显示了这一点——从几个女孩自拍的照片到在华夫饼屋闲逛的一群人的照片。
And she isn't finished with this project yet.
她的拍摄计划还没有完成。
While most of the girls went off to college, she is still in touch with some of them and plans to photograph them when they are home in May to see where they are now.
虽然大多数女孩都上了大学，但她仍与其中一些女孩保持着联系，并计划在5月份她们回家时给她们拍照，看看她们现在在哪里。
She hopes the end result of this project will be a multimedia piece where individuals can hear the girls' voices behind the images.
她希望这个项目的最终结果是一个多媒体作品，在这个作品中，每个人都能听到照片背后女孩们的声音。
"I wanted to be sure that I was showing this blend of empathy and also a sense of humor and beauty and color, but at the same time, calling into question some of the cultural forces that have placed them where they are."
“我想要确定自己是在展示这种同理心、幽默感、美感和色彩的融合，但与此同时，也让人们关注到一些文化力量，正是这些文化力量将她们置于现在的位置。”
But ultimately, Rutledge wants her project to foster a discussion of how tradition plays out in the modern world.
但最终，拉特利奇希望她的项目能促进对传统如何在现代世界中发挥作用的讨论。
— 问题 —
文中提到这种裙子一条造价大约多少？
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