有趣的丹寧文章 from New York Times。 - 牛仔褲

http://tinyurl.com/rhgq3

這類文章們近一年來的大意都是
有刷紋，破壞處理的褲子正當紅
designer jeans 的市場
褲子的產地和勞工的內幕
以及同一家工廠其實生產 Levi's 也有 DG，
我想這是一個很好的背景故事 給之前一串討論牛仔褲品質和價格推文

幾個月前有幾篇談 luxurious jeans 和 market 的文章已經找不到
不過寫的都差不多
這篇倒是沒有談到太多幕後 "價格" 的細節
之前有篇德文報導就比較直接也夠狠 價格都寫出來以外
還揭發(?)所謂"獨一無二人工刷紋"的處理程序 很可惜找不到了 orz


原文如下：
"Yeah, They Torture Jeans. But It旧 All for the Sake of Fashion. "

VEDELAGO, Italy ? Giovanni Petrin remembers well his first efforts at beating
up jeans.

Italian industrialists had visited Japan years ago to observe how the Japanese
washed denim garments with small stones. 争o we took white stones from riverbeds
here in the Veneto,?said Mr. Petrin, referring to the northern Italian region
where his jeans factory is situated. 戦t destroyed the washing machines,
and the jeans.?

Only after the Italians learned that the Japanese used pumice did the trick
work. Now sales of jeans with the used, worn or beat-up look are booming on
both sides of the Atlantic, making battered jeans a case study of the push and
pull of global competition, and wrapping Europeans and Americans in more jeans
than ever before. They have fanciful American brand names like Diesel, Replay
and Seven for all Mankind, but in fact, the real driving forces behind these
names are all Europeans, and now they are asserting their design influence as
the premium and elite niches of the jeans market are exploding.

At the heart of this phenomenon are the artificially aged garments laboriously
engineered by Europeans like Mr. Petrin, a compact bearded man of 55, the chief
executive of Martelli Lavorazioni Tessili. The Italians, and in large part
Martelli, took it to an art form,?said Joe Ieraci, owner of the Blue Hound,
a denim consulting firm, describing Martelli旧 techniques for distressing
denim. Martelli posted $140 million of revenue in 2005 not by making any of these
jeans, but by providing the skills and technology to transform them from new to
old-looking. It was largely thanks to those like Mr. Petrin, who helped build
the new 団ld?look by combining fresh styling with innovative manufacturing
skills (he has a small secret here), that weathered jeans became the object of
desire in America旧 $15 billion jeans market.

Martelli, uncontested in Europe, has competitors only in the United States and
in Japan. Earlier this year, the company, which has four factories in Italy,
signed an agreement to build a plant in Morocco with local partners. Last year,
the company opened a factory in Turkey. In Romania, Martelli already turns
around about 30,000 pairs of jeans a day at its own plant.
Mr. Petrin was recently on the verge of signing a deal for a joint venture in
California that fell through only after the American partner unilaterally
raised the cost of Martelli旧 investment. He has discussed,
though unsuccessfully, cooperation with an American competitor,
Sights Denim Systems, of Henderson, Ky. America is too big to neglect,
he says.

Today, about two-thirds of Martelli旧 production is at its Italian factories
and a third elsewhere. Mr. Petrin says he can see the day coming when the
relationship will reverse, and only design and research and development will
remain in Italy. While Italians hold virtually all the jobs designing and
marketing Martelli旧 jeans, only a smattering of Italians remain on the shop
floor.
But the real secret to Martelli旧 success?
Chinese labor.

Indeed, the real challenge for several years for Martelli has been to find the
hands to do the work. Now, most of the 175 workers in one of Martelli旧
hand-crafting factories are Chinese, legal immigrants whom Mr. Petrin praises
for their patience and dexterity. He attracted them to work for him after
meeting by chance a Chinese fabric dyer.
We tried Romanians, and we tried Africans,"he said, 錊None were as good as the Chinese."

Mr. Petrin has visited China, which also is by far the biggest jeans market in
the world.With its 9,000 employees, Martelli takes jeans manufactured in
low-wage countries like Morocco or Turkey and then stylizes them for upmarket
clients like Gucci, Armani or Tommy Hilfiger, who sell the finished product.
Mr. Petrin旧 client list includes designers like Armani, Dolce & Gabbana,
Yves Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan, but also mass-market brands
like Levi Strauss, the world旧 biggest jeans maker, the Lee and Wrangler brands
of the VP Corporation, Gap and Zara.

A stroll through Mr. Petrin旧 factories, which turn out 120,000 items every
day, is an encounter with the automated destruction of jeans. In their main
factory, with 900 workers, huge washing machines tumble jeans with pumice
gravel; workers in face masks slip jeans legs over inflated balloons, which then
move robotlike between sets of abrasive plastic brushes that scrub the denim to
give it a worn look. Other workers brush creases into the jeans that, because
they fan out from the fly, are called whiskers.


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待續，手酸....

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