回首牛仔的曾經:誰發明了牛仔褲?

In the beginning, there were Levi's. In 1853, during the heart of the gold rush, a Bavarian émigré named Levi Strauss arrived in San Francisco from New York, looking to expand his family's East Coast dry-goods business. Among his wares were blankets, cloth by the yard and durable work pants, sometimes called "jeans pants." Then in 1872, one of Strauss's customers, a tailor named Jacob Davis, made him the offer that would change his fortunes — and the way Americans dressed — forever. Davis had been buying Strauss's blue denim and duck cloth to sew "waist-overalls" and had perfected a method of reinforcing them with the same copper rivets he used on horse blankets. Unwilling to put up the $68 necessary to patent his creation, he suggested that Strauss pay the fee in exchange for a half-interest in the business.

起初，有Levi's牛仔褲。1853年，在淘金熱的高潮，一個名叫利維·斯特勞斯(Levi Strauss)的巴伐利亞移民從紐約來到舊金山，想擴大他家族的東海岸公司(East Coast)的紡織品生意。他的產品包括毯子、大量布料和耐磨的工作褲——這種褲子有時被稱爲“牛仔褲'”。1872年，斯特勞斯的一位顧客、一個名叫雅可布·戴維斯(Jacob Davis)的裁縫提出一個建議，這個建議將徹底改變利維的命運以及美國人的着裝方式。之前戴維斯經常購買斯特勞斯的藍色粗斜紋布和帆布，縫製“齊腰工裝褲”，而且用他做馬鞍褥的銅鉚釘改進了加固方法。他不願花68美元給自己的創造申請專利，所以提議讓斯特勞斯來支付這個費用，回報是這個生意一半的利潤。

The patent for "improvement in fastening pocket-openings" was granted in 1873, and soon after Levi Strauss & Company opened its first San Francisco factory to manufacture bluejeans. The original design, which was simply called "XX," was eventually assigned lot number 501. Competition was fierce: In addition to an upstate New York company called Sweet-Orr, founded in 1871 (which may actually have been the first commercial jeans producer), there were countless regional jeans companies by the turn of the century, including Osh Kosh B'Gosh in Wisconsin and Carhartt in Michigan. In 1911, the H.D. Lee Mercantile Company of Kansas started producing its own brand of workwear, which eventually led to Lee Dungarees. Along with Wrangler (originally founded in 1904 as the Hudson Overall Company of Greensboro, N.C.) and Levi's, Lee went on after World War II to become what James Sullivan, author of "Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon," calls "the big three" of bluejeans.

“改進加固口袋的方法”的專利在1873年獲得批准，不久之後，利維·斯特勞斯公司(Levi Strauss & Company)在舊金山開設了第一家工廠，生產藍色牛仔褲。最初的設計被簡單命名爲“XX”，最終指定的批號爲501。競爭非常激烈：1871年紐約州北部成立了一個名叫甜蜜奧爾(Sweet-Orr)的公司，它實際上可能是第一個牛仔褲生產商；到20世紀初，出現了數不清的地區牛仔褲公司，包括威斯康星州的奧什·科什·比哥什公司(Osh Kosh B'Gosh)和密歇根州的卡哈特公司(Carhartt)。1911年，堪薩斯州的H·D·李商業公司(H.D. Lee Mercantile Company)開始生產它自己的工作服品牌，最終演變爲李牌工裝褲(Lee Dungarees)。Levi's公司、Lee公司和牛仔公司（Wrangler，它成立於1904年，最初名爲北卡羅來納州格林斯博羅市哈德遜工裝褲公司[Hudson Overall Company of Greensboro, N.C.]）這三家公司一直存續到“二戰”後，成爲詹姆斯·沙利文(James Sullivan)所說的牛仔褲“三巨頭”。沙利文是《牛仔褲：一個美國標誌的文化史》(Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon)的作者。

Regardless of brand, jeans have reflected the mood of the country since the moment they were introduced. "You went from cuffed jeans in the ‘50s to faded and bell-bottoms in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, to the designer jeans of the disco era, the saggy jeans of the hip-hop era and on to the exclusive $300 jeans we now call premium," Sullivan says. And like all truly revolutionary products, jeans have inspired adoration, outrage and everything in between. As Yves Saint Laurent said more than once, "I wish I had invented bluejeans."

撇開品牌不說，牛仔褲從誕生起就反映了這個國家的情緒。“從50年代的翻邊牛仔褲，60年代、70年代初的褪色喇叭牛仔褲，到迪斯科舞時代的設計師牛仔褲，嘻哈時代鬆垮垮的牛仔褲，再到如今300美元的高端牛仔褲，”沙利文說。像所有真正具有革命性的產品，牛仔褲激發了愛慕、憤怒以及各種情緒。伊夫·聖·洛朗(Yves Saint Laurent)曾不止一次說過，“真希望牛仔褲是我發明的。”