Jeans牛仔裤

牛仔裤，由丁尼布制成，起初是为了工作方便而设计，后来20世纪50年代在年轻人中越来越受欢迎，成为时尚成衣中的一款。它休闲而不失时尚，俏皮却又有风情，由最初的工装裤发展到长裤、短裤、裙子、上衣，等等，无不体现了牛仔时尚的魅力。最古老的牛仔品牌包括Levi’s和Wrangler。

What is Jeans? 牛仔裤是什么？

过去我们只知道牛仔裤，而现在越来越多的牛仔服装千变万化，已经延伸到服装的各个环节。

Jeans are now a very popular form of casual dress around the world. They come in many styles and colors, however "blue jeans" are particularly identified with American culture, especially the American Old West. Americans spent more than $14 billion on jeans in 2004.

Trousers made from corduroy or canvas are sometimes called "jeans". However, by definition the word "jeans" strictly refers to trousers made out of denim.

Some tales about Jeans和牛仔裤有关的几个故事

Settlers定居者

从英国来的移民者生产了一种厚重的棉布料，制成了最初的牛仔裤。
Immigrant weavers from Yorkshire, England, produced heavy cotton fustians – cotton-twill jeans – from a cloth mill in Massachusetts as early as 1638. In 1789 George Washington toured a mill in Massachusetts that was weaving both denim and jean. By 1849 a New York manufacturer was advertising topcoats, vests and short jackets in blue jean. Mechanics and painters were wearing overalls made of blue denim; others wore more tailored trousers made of jean.

Gold掘金

美国的掘金热为牛仔裤广为制作穿着提供了契机。
Early in 1848 James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter from New Jersey, picked up nuggets of gold from the site of a sawmill he was building by a river near Coloma, California. By August the Gold Rush had begun. In 1853 Loeb Strauss (who later changed his name to Levi) arrived in San Francisco from New York and set up a wholesale business. Demand from miners for hard-wearing work clothes was strong. The Pacific Rural Press of 28 June 1873 observed: ‘Nothing looks more slouchy in a workman than to see his pockets ripped open and hanging down, and no other part of the clothing is so apt to be torn and ripped as the pockets.’

Rivets铆钉

Levi’s提供了申请专利需要的钱，也让牛仔裤的样式相对固定了下来。
In 1872 Levi Strauss received a letter from Jacob Davis, who had been making riveted clothing for miners in the Reno area. Davis had no money to file for a patent and offered Levi Strauss a deal if he would pay for the patent. Levi Strauss began to make copper-riveted ‘waist overalls’ (as jeans were then known). In 1886 Levi’s ‘Two Horse Brand’ leather patch, showing the garment pulled between two horses to prove its strength, was first used. By 1890 lot-numbers were being used for Levi products: 501 was assigned to copper-riveted overalls. In 1902 two back pockets were added.

Movies电影

好莱坞在上世纪30年代的西部片中，总是塑造身着牛仔裤的牛仔形象，得到大家的公认。
During the 1930s Western movies from Hollywood elevated ‘authentic’ cowboys, who were often portrayed wearing the garment, to mythic status. Easterners headed west for experience on dude ranches, and brought denim ‘waist overalls’ back east with them. Customer complaints led to the restitching of the Levi back pockets in 1937 so that the rivets were covered and did not scratch furniture or saddles. Suspender buttons were removed, though all customers were still supplied with a snap-on set.

War战争

二战给牛仔裤的样式带来了革命性的变化，从开始的肥大的工作裤逐渐发展成“合体”的牛仔裤。
Restrictions on the use of raw materials during World War Two led to a decline in the production of ‘waist overalls’. The crotch rivet and back cinch were removed to save fabric and metal. As GIs fanned out around the world the ‘waist overalls’ they sometimes wore while off duty carried American style and abundance to countries devastated by war. Denim became less associated with work than leisure. In 1947 Wrangler introduced the first ‘body fit’ jeans. In 1948 an old pair of jeans was found in an abandoned silver mine in the Mojave Desert, California. The woman who found them patched them up and wore them for a while. Then she wrote to Levi Strauss, who bought them for $25 and a few new pairs. Made around 1890, they are said to be the oldest pair of blue jeans in the world.

Rebels变革

战后，除了Levi’s，新的竞争者相继出现，牛仔裤的市场竞争促进了商家们在牛仔裤的样式和穿着感等方面进行改革，以迎合越来越多的青少年的口味。
After the war Levi Strauss began selling its products outside the American West for the first time. New rivals, such as Wrangler and Lee, began to compete for market share. Denim-clad ‘juvenile delinquents’ and ‘motorcycle boys’ featured in films and on TV; James Dean wore denim in the film Rebel Without a Cause. Some school administrators in the US banned denim altogether. In 1958 a syndicated newspaper report claimed that ‘about 90 per cent of American youths wear jeans everywhere except in bed and in church’. Teenagers used the term ‘jean pants’, and the name stuck. The bad reputation – and the healthy sales – of jeans grew still further when ‘college kids’ wore them during the protests of the 1960s and at the Woodstock music festival in 1969.

Art艺术

牛仔裤的变革历史可以生动地体现出美国社会的变化，它从另一个侧面成为了“西方”文化的代表。
In 1964 a pair of Levi jeans entered the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. In 1969 American Fabrics claimed: ‘What has happened to denim in the last decade is really a capsule of what happened to America. It has climbed the ladder of taste.’ Embroidered, painted, sequinned and ‘psychedelic’ denim took an outing on city streets. US jean manufacturers claimed that they regularly received begging letters from ‘behind the Iron Curtain’ and as far afield as Pitcairn Island. Jeans became a symbol of ‘Western’ culture – or ‘decadence’ – and a weapon in the Cold War.

Label符号

经济的好转带动了消费，牛仔裤也加入了被设计的对象行列，成为一个时代的符号。
With the liberalization of world trade from the late 1970s onwards ‘sweatshops’ using cheap – usually female – labour in the South began to replace factories in the North. Jeans appeared on city streets – even on miners and rural labourers – in the South. In the North, the 1980s ‘designer jeans’ craze took the garment firmly up-market. Booming sales of branded ‘sports shoes’, often worn with jeans, reinforced the trend. Chain stores and fashion houses promoted their own lines of jeans. A vast number of new ‘labels’ appeared. Established brands often missed the latest fad, like baggy jeans, and went for nostalgia instead. Sales rocketed. But during the worldwide recession of the early 1990s the empire of jeans stopped expanding as its subjects became restless.

现在，每个人都会有几条牛仔裤在家备用，因为它的舒适和随意，抑或是它的时尚和不羁，总能吸引人们的注意力。未来它也将继续着它的故事，游走于设计师的殿堂和百姓的生活之中。

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