1、This is the story of a sturdy American symbol which has now spread throughout most of the world. The symbol is not the dollar . It is not even Coca-Cola. It is a simple pair of pants called blue jeans, and what the pants symbolize is what Alexis de Tocquevi lle called “ a manly and legitimate passio

2、n for equality.Blue jeans are favored equally by bureaucrats and cowboys;bankers and deadbeats; fashion designers and beer drinkers They draw no distinctions and recognize no classes; they are merely American 1 . Yet they are sought after almost everywhere in the world including Russia, where author

3、ities recently broke up a teen-agedgang that was selling them on the black market for two hundred dollars a pair. They havebeen around for a long time, and it seems likely that they will outlive even the necktie.2 This ubiquitous American symbol was the invention of a Bavarian-born Jew. His name was

4、 Levi Strauss.3 He was born in Bad Ocheim, Germany , in 1829, and during the European political turmoilof 1848 decided to take his chances in New York , to which his two brothers already had emigrated. Upon arrival, Levi soon found that his two brothers had exaggerated their tales of an easy life in

5、 the land of the main chance. They were landowners, they had told him; instead, he found them pushing needles, thread, pots, pans ribbons, yarn, scissors and buttons to housewives. For two years he was a lowly peddler, hauling some 180 pounds of sundriesdoor-to-door to eke out a marginal living. Whe

6、n a married sister in San Francisco offered topay his way West in1850, he jumped at the opportunity, taking with him bolts of canvas he hoped to sell for tenting.4 It was the wrong kind of canvas for that purpose, but while talking with a miner down fromthe mother lode, he l earned that pants sturdy

7、 pants that would stand up to the rigors of thedigging were almost impossible to find. Opportunity beckoned. On the spot, Strauss measured the man's girth and inseam with a piece of string and, for six dollars in gold dust 2 , had the canvas tailored into a pair of stiff but rugged pants. The mi

8、ner was delighted with the result, word got around about“ those pants of Levi's” and Strauss was in business. Thecompany has been in business ever since.5 When Strauss ran out of canvas, he wrote his two brothers to send more. He receivedinstead a tough, brown cotton cloth made in Nimes, France

9、called serge de Nimes andswiftly shortened to“ denim ” (the word “jeans ” derives from Ge nes, the French word forGenoa, where a similar cloth was produced). Almost from the first, Strauss had his cloth dyed the distinctive indigo that gave blue jeans their name 3 , but it was not until the 1870s th

10、at he added the copper rivets which have long since become a company trademark. The rivets were the idea of a Virginia City, Nevada , tailor, Jacob W. Dacis, who added them to pacify amean-tempered miner called Alkali Ike. Alkali, the story goes, complained that the pockets of his jeans always tore

11、when he stuffed them with ore samples and demanded that Davis do something about it. As a kind of joke, Davis took the pants to a blacksmith and had the packets riveted; once again, the idea worked so well that word got around; in 1873 Strauss appropriated 4 and patented the gimmick and hired Davis

12、as aregional manager .6 By this time, Strausshad taken both his brothers andtwo brothers-in-law intothecompany and was readyfor his third San Franciscostore.Over the ensuingyearsthecompany prospered locally, and by the time of his death in 1902, Strauss has become a manof prominence in California .

13、For three decades thereafter the business remained profitable though small, with sales largely confined to the working people of the West cowboys,lumberjacks, railroad workers, and the like. Levi's jeans were first introduced to the East, apparently, during the dude-ranch craze of the 1930s, whe

14、n vacationing Easters returned and spread the word about the wonderful pants with rivets. Another boost came in World Warnincludingwhen blue jeans were declared and essential commodity and were sold only to people engaged in defense work 5 . From a company with fifteen salespeople, two plants, and a

15、lmost no business east of the Mississippi in 1946, the organization grew in thirty years to include a sales force of more than twenty-two thousand, with fifty plants and offices in thirty-five countries. Each year , more than 250,000,000 items of Levi's clothing are soldmore than 83,000,000 pair

16、s of riveted blue jeans. They have become, through marketing, word of mouth, and demonstrable reliability, the common pants of America . They can be purchased pre-washed, pre-faded,and pre-shrunk for the suitably proletarianlook. Theyadapt themselves to any sort of idiosyncratic use; women slit them

17、 at the inseams and convert them into long skirts, men chop them off above the knees and turn them into something to be worn while challenging the surf. Decorations and ornamentations abound.7 The pants have become a tradition, and along the way have acquired a history of their own so much so that t

18、he company has opened a museum in San Francisco. There was, for example 6 , the turn-of-the-century trainman who replaced a faulty coupling with a pair of jeans; the Wyoming man who used his jeans as a towrope to haulhis car out of a ditch; the Californian who found several pairs in an abandoned min

19、e, wore them, then discovered they were sixty-three years old and still as good as new and turned them over to the Smithsonian as a tribute to their toughness. And then there is the particularly terrifying story of the careless construction worker who dangled fifty-two stories above the street until

20、 rescued, his sole support the Levi's belt loop through which his rope was hooked.美國牛仔褲史話卡琳奎因1 本文講述的是美國的一個堅實的象征物，如今已經遍及世界大部分地區。此物不是美元，甚至也不是可口可樂，而只是一條稱作藍色牛仔褲的普通褲子。這條褲子所象征的，如亞歷克西德托克維爾所言，是對平等的果敢而正當的渴求”無論是官員還是牛仔，銀行家還是賴帳徒，時裝設計師還是嗜酒成性者，都同樣青睞藍色牛仔褲。這種褲子對人不分高低貴賤，只要是美國人都可以穿。不過，牛仔褲幾乎在世界 各地都廣受歡迎 其中包括俄羅斯，其當局

21、最近破獲了一個在黑市上倒賣牛仔褲的青少年團伙，他們的 牛仔褲賣到 200 美元一條。牛仔褲已經流行了很長時間，看來其生命力甚至可能超過領帶。2 這個無所不在的美國象征是一個出生于巴伐利亞的猶太人發明的，它的名字叫李維施特勞斯。3 他于 1829 年出生于德國的巴德奧切姆， 1848 年歐洲政治動蕩期間，決定去紐約碰碰運氣，他的 兩個哥哥已經移民去了那里。到了紐約，李維很快就發現，兩個哥哥關于在這片充滿機遇的土地上生活比 較安逸的說法實在有些言過其實。他們說自己擁有土地，可他發現他們在向家庭主婦推銷針線、鍋罐、緞 帶、剪刀和鈕扣。 李維做了兩年寒酸的小販， 拉著 180 來磅的雜貨挨門挨戶地叫賣

22、， 勉強維持生計。 1850 年，他的一個嫁到舊金山的姐姐愿意為他提供西行的路費，他急忙抓住這一機會，帶著幾卷帆布走了，打 算賣給人家做帳篷用。4 豈料這種帆布不適于做帳篷。不過，李維跟一個來自主礦脈的礦工交談時了解到，人們簡直買不到能 經得起采礦磨損的結實耐穿的褲子。機會向他招手了。施特勞斯當場用一根帶子量了那人的腰圍和褲長， 請人用帆布做成一條粗硬而耐磨的褲子，賣得了 6 美元的砂金。礦工感到很滿意，于是有關 “李維的那些 褲子 ”的消息不脛而走，施特勞斯從此做起了生意。自那以后，他的公司一直在經營。5 施特勞斯用完了帆布，便寫信叫哥哥在發一些過來，不想收到的卻是法國尼姆產的一種堅韌的棕色

23、棉 布 稱作 “尼姆嗶嘰 ”（ serge de Nimes ） , 很快就簡稱為 “勞動布 ” 英語詞 jeans（ 牛仔褲 ） 源 自于法語的 Genes ，即英語的 Genoa （熱那亞），此地生產一種類似的棉布 。幾乎從一開始，施 特勞斯就把他的布料染成別具一格的靛藍色， 因此便有了藍色牛仔褲之稱。 不過，直到 19 世紀 70 年代， 他才往褲子上加了銅鉚釘；長期以來，這銅鉚釘也就成了公司的標志。給褲子加上鉚釘是內華達州弗吉尼 亞市的裁縫雅各布w 戴維斯想出的主意，他這樣做是為了撫慰為一個名叫阿爾卡利艾克的脾氣暴躁的礦工。據說他抱怨他往口袋里裝礦石標本時，口袋總是被撐破，要求戴維斯想

24、想辦法。戴維斯開了個玩笑， 把褲子拿到鐵匠鋪，給口袋上了鉚釘。這一招果然奏效，消息再一次不脛而走。1873 年，施特勞斯采納了這一小發明，出資為之申請了專利 并雇用戴維斯做地區經理。6 這時候，施特勞斯已把他的兩個哥哥和兩個姐夫招進了公司，并準備在舊金山開辦他的第三個分店。此后的幾十年間，公司在當地生意興隆。1902年施特勞斯去世時，他已成為加利福尼亞的知名人士。在以后的30年中，生意雖然不大，但一直在盈利，主要的銷售對象是西部的勞工階層一一諸如牛仔、伐木工、鐵路工之類的人。李維的牛仔褲最初引進到東部，顯然是在20世紀30年代的農場度假熱潮中，西去度假的東部人回家后，便到處宣揚這種帶銅鉚釘的奇

25、妙褲子。二次大戰期間，藍色牛仔褲又一次走俏，被宣布為緊要商品，只賣給從事防務工作的人。該公司在1946年時還只有15名銷售員，兩個加工廠，密西西比河以東幾乎沒有什么業務，而30年后則發展成擁有 2萬2千多人的銷售隊伍，并在35個國家設有50家加工廠和辦事 處。每年，李維服裝的銷售量超過2億5千多萬件一一其中包括8千3百多萬條釘有銅鉚釘的藍色牛仔褲。通過市場營銷，口口相傳，以及顯而易見的可靠性，牛仔褲 已成為美國的尋常褲裝。人們還可以賣到進行過水洗、褪色和縮水處理的牛仔褲，以符 合無產者的形象。牛仔褲經過改造還可以供各種癖好的人使用。婦女們將褲管內縫拆開，將褲子改制成長裙；男人們將其從膝蓋上方截下，變成沖浪時穿的短褲。人們還給牛仔 褲綴上各式各樣的裝飾物。7 牛仔褲已成為一種傳統，在