Half the people on the street are dressed to kill. Every second woman on the avenue and every second man on the town and every other kid on the jungle gym has his or her back clad in army green. Challenging the ubiquity of black outerwear in the cities and lending a flavor of the PX to the suburban shopping center, the color has conquered the national wardrobe. The history of getting dressed is in large part a story of borrowing combat garb — cravat and cardigan, bomber jacket and pea coat — but the proliferation of the army green jacket is different in kind and in degree.
街上一半的人穿得好像要去杀人。街上一半的女人、城里一半的男人以及攀爬架上一半的孩子穿着军绿色。这种颜色正在挑战城市里无所不在的黑色外衣，给郊区购物中心增添一份不同的色彩——它征服了美国人的衣橱。着装史在很大程度上是借鉴战斗服装的过程，比如领巾和羊毛衫、短夹克和双排扣海军短大衣，但是这一次，军绿外套的大量出现在种类和程度上都不同于以往。
The most symbolically resonant of this year’s models evoke the M-65 field jacket worn by United States troops in Vietnam. The ideal color — the one approved by the Army Uniform Board — is “Army Green Shade 44,” but a variety of hues and cuts speak in the same idiom, likewise breathing military jargon into the general American vocabulary of dress.
今年最有代表性的款式让人想起越战时美军穿的M-65野战短外套。最理想的颜色是曾被美国军装委员会(Army Uniform Board)批准的“44号军绿色”，不过各种颜色和剪裁都传达着同一个意思——把军事元素注入美国服装语汇里。

Proving immune to the seasonal cycles of designer fashion, retaining currency with elites despite its presence in bargain bins, losing no prestige with youth even as their elders try the same look, the army soldier’s green jacket has developed a status on par with that of the gold miner’s bluejeans with which it pairs so well.
绿色军装夹克证明自己不像名牌时装那样受季节限制，即使出现在特价区也依然受精英青睐，就算长辈们穿同样款式也不影响它在年轻人中的声望，它的地位已和淘金者的蓝色牛仔裤旗鼓相当——还真别说，它们是绝配。
The green now regarded as a quintessentially American tradition emerged only recently. In the early 1800s, imperial armies kitted themselves out in similar shades, like the rifle green of the British and the Russian green of the czar, but Gen. George Washington had preferred the blue coat and buff breeches ordained by one of his old Virginia military companies and immortalized in the Charles Willson Peale portrait. Though Washington ordered the Continental Army into dark blue coats in 1779, the color did not become official nationwide until 1821. Nonetheless, the uniform’s details changed to suit new styles worn by European cavalry and on the streets of the new republic. In contrast to the rigidity of the French or the British or, for that matter, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army maintained a uniform tradition that was ad hoc and improvisatory — haphazard at worst but dashingly Whitmanesque at its finest.
绿色如今已被认为是典型的美国传统，其实它兴起的时间并不长。19世纪早期，皇家军队穿着类似颜色的服装，比如英国的来福绿和沙皇的俄罗斯绿，但是乔治·华盛顿将军(George Washington)更喜欢他的弗吉尼亚老雇佣军公司制定的蓝色外套和浅黄色马裤，他的这个造型在查尔斯·威尔森·皮尔(Charles Willson Peale)的画笔下永垂不朽。1779年，华盛顿下令将大陆军的军服上衣改为深蓝色，但是直到1821年，那种颜色才成为全国美军的官方颜色。不过，这种制服的细节也做了些改动，以适应欧洲骑兵的新着装风格以及新共和国的街头风格。与法军、英军或美国海军的刻板相比，美国陆军的制服传统独特而随性——最糟的时候，显得太过随便；最好的时候，具有帅气的惠特曼风格。
When the tactics of the Spanish-American War showed the wisdom of some semblance of camouflage, blue gave way to khaki and eventually to the olive-brown tones of Dwight Eisenhower’s famous short jacket. The standard-issue olive drabs, or “O.D.s,” were openly derided. “It was a shade that might have reminded an imaginative observer of the color of vomit or even excrement,” the cultural critic Paul Fussell wrote in his 2002 book, “Uniforms.” After V-J Day, it became existentially necessary for the Army to address its image problem. Olive drab was a drag on morale and a handicap to recruitment, and the mass entry of army clothes to the civilian life, as worn by veterans to tend their lawns or to pump a customer’s gas, further eroded its prestige.
在美西战争中，迷彩色展现出自己的优势，蓝色让位给卡其色，最终演变为德怀特·艾森豪威尔(Dwight Eisenhower)著名短夹克的橄榄绿棕色。标准的橄榄绿土褐色被公开嘲笑。“这种颜色可能会让人想起呕吐物甚至粪便的颜色，”文化批评家保罗·富塞尔(Paul Fussell)在他2002年出版的《制服》(Uniforms)一书中写道。“二战”结束后，军队实在是需要考虑自己的形象问题了。橄榄绿土褐色挫败士气，影响征兵，而且军装开始大量进入平民生活，退伍军人穿着它打理草坪或者给顾客加油，军装的声望进一步遭到损害。
In 1949, the Office of the Quartermaster General set about stabilizing the army uniform, and its search for a new color may have represented the most extensive development and market-testing process in the history of both apparel and bureaucracy. An advisory committee ruled that a neutral gray-green would be “flattering to the greatest range of people,” according to a later technical report. A team from the Quartermaster Corps proposed army uniforms to about 15,000 troops in 24 cities; quantified the relative enthusiasm of recruits, veterans and officers’ wives; and tested the new uniform on the ceremonial troop companies of the Third Infantry Regiment, a majority of which felt that officers and enlisted men should wear the same clothes.
1949年，美国军需总办公室(Office of the Quartermaster General)开始着手将军服颜色固定下来，它寻找军服新颜色的过程可能是服装和官僚史上最广泛的研发和市场测试过程。根据后来的一份技术报告，一个咨询委员会裁定，中性灰绿色会是“最讨人喜欢的颜色”。美国军需部(Quartermaster Corps)的一个小组向24个城市的约1.5个军队展示了多套军装；量化评估新兵、老兵和军官妻子对这些军装的热情程度；在第三步兵团(Third Infantry Regiment)的仪仗队公司测试新制服，大部分公司认为军官和士兵应该穿同一种颜色。
Phased in between the mid-’50s and early ’60s, the army green field uniform projected “the confidence and readiness of an authoritative military force,” the historian Shelby Stanton wrote in “U.S. Army Uniforms of the Cold War, 1948-1973.” “Army green,” Stanton felt, “complemented the U.S. desire to project the most professional soldiering image toward its Cold War adversaries.” The M-65 is named for the year of its debut.
史学家谢尔比·斯坦顿(Shelby Stanton)在《冷战时期的美军制服》(U.S. Army Uniforms of the Cold War, 1948-1973)中写道，军绿色野战服在50年代中期至60年代初被逐步采用，它表现出“官方军事力量的信心和备战状态”。斯坦顿感觉，“军绿色”“帮助美国向冷战对手塑造出最职业的士兵形象”。
But only a few years later, as a youth revolt emerged around the world, anti-authoritarians pressed the army jacket into subversive service. Country Joe at Woodstock, John Lennon at Madison Square Garden and Jane Fonda on the Free the Army road show all treated costume as commentary. The counterculture kid in Army gear could razz the warmongering machine that had endowed the jacket with symbolic power, and he could honor boys destined to die in their boots, and he could also effectively affect a bohemian pose.
但是，仅仅几年之后，随着青年造反运动在世界各地兴起，反威权主义者把军装用于颠覆活动。乡下佬乔乐队(Country Joe)在伍德斯托克音乐节(Woodstock)上、约翰·列侬(John Lennon)在麦迪逊广场花园、简·方达(Jane Fonda)在“解放军队”(Free the Army)巡回演出中，纷纷通过服装来表达观点。反主流文化的青年通过穿军装来嘲笑美国这台好战机器赋予军装一种象征性权力，纪念那些注定在战场上死去的少年，与此同时还为为自己带来一种波希米亚的姿态。
In 1971, having returned from the Vietnam War and committed to protest against it, Navy Lt. John Kerry wore an army green field jacket to meet the press and the public. Alison Lurie decoded the message of every protester’s surplus-store get-up in her 1981 book “The Language of Clothes,” writing that “the longhaired kid in the Confederate tunic or the Eisenhower jacket was not some kind of coward or sissy; that he was not against all wars — just against the cruel and unnecessary one he was in danger of being drafted into.”
1971年，海军上尉约翰·克里(John Kerry)从越南战场回国，决心抗议越战，他见媒体和公众时总是身穿军绿色野战服。艾莉森·卢里(Alison Lurie)在她1981年出版的《服装的语言》(The Language of Clothes)中，解读了每位抗议者的军队剩品店装扮想要传达的意思。她写道，“身穿盟军束腰上衣或艾森豪威尔夹克的长发男孩不是懦夫或胆小鬼，他不是反对所有的战争，只是反对自己可能被征召参加的那场残酷而没有必要的战争。”
Having evolved into a uniform for dissenters, the army green jacket could variously represent the shell of a loner (Robert De Niro in “Taxi Driver”) and the skin of a neurotic (Woody Allen in “Annie Hall”), the badge of the last honest man (Al Pacino in “Serpico”) and the sign of a rebel’s toughness (the guys smoking cigarettes in your high-school parking lots).
军绿上衣已经发展为异见者的制服，它可以是孤独者的保护壳（《出租车司机》[Taxi Driver]中的罗伯特·德尼罗[Robert De Niro]）、神经过敏者的外衣（《安妮·霍尔[Annie Hall]中的伍迪·艾伦[Woody Allen]）、最后一个正直的人的徽章（《冲突》[Serpico]中的阿尔·帕西诺[Al Pacino]），或者反叛者强硬态度的标志（那些在高中停车场上抽烟的家伙）。
The March 10, 1996, edition of The Times carried a report on ballistic-missile tests off Taiwan, an analysis of President Clinton’s difficulty articulating a foreign policy absent “the organizing principle of the Soviet threat” and an inquiry into “Fashion’s Military Fascination,” wherein the critic Suzy Menkes observed an increased number of fashion designers trafficking in the visual rhetoric of the battlefield. The escalation made her uneasy. Gucci epaulets, a Versace battle blouse, a trim-fit Prada trench coat tailored to a fascist aesthetic: These references collectively seemed crass, given the gravity of the referent. Moreover, they seemed like poor business. “Military looks on the runway are often badly received,” Menkes wrote, citing clients’ rejection of Valentino camouflage print in 1994, “just when the United Nations peacekeeping force was in Rwanda.” Why did designers persist? Menkes diagnosed a romance for old uniforms of all stripes: “Wartime images tend to be absorbed into fashion when the clothing no longer serves its original function.” This was the advance guard of the current moment’s military formation.
1996年3月10日，《纽约时报》报道了台湾的弹道导弹试验，分析了克林顿总统在缺乏“苏联威胁时期的组织原则”情况下，表达外交政策时遇到的困难，此外还调查了“时装对军装的痴迷”。在最后这篇文章中，评论家苏西·门克斯(Suzy Menkes)观察发现，越来越多的时装设计师在借用战场的视觉修辞。这种增长态势让她感到不安。古驰(Gucci)肩饰、范思哲(Versace)军装上衣、裁剪风格符合法西斯审美的普拉达(Prada)修身双排扣战壕风衣：这些单品被放在一起讨论显得有点愚蠢，因为每件单品都很严肃。而且，它们似乎卖得不好。“秀台上的军装造型通常不被接受，”门克斯写道。她以1994年客户们对华伦天奴(Valentino)迷彩印花的排斥为证，“当时联合国维和部队恰好在卢旺达”。设计师们为什么还要坚持呢？门克斯认为，那是因为设计师们对所有类型的旧制服仍怀有浪漫感情：“当服装不再为它的原始功能服务时，时装界就会引入战时造型。”这是目前军装盛行的前兆。
It is tempting to say that the army green jacket could not properly begin its ride to the fore until the 20th century was put to bed and the 21st woke to a need for nostalgia. The first sign of broad public acceptance of the army green jacket came in the spring of 2001, with the first Marc by Marc Jacobs collection, which emblematically featured a green jacket with epaulets adjacent to the cute puffs of its gathered sleeves. Vogue assistants threw them on to counter the girlishness of floral-print dresses, and fashion followed, high and low.
直到人们送别20世纪、在21世纪初感到自己需要怀旧时，军绿上衣才正式出人头地。公众广泛接受军绿上衣的第一个征兆在2001年春天出现，马克·雅可布之马克(Marc by Marc Jacobs)的第一个系列象征性地推出了一件带肩饰和可爱泡泡袖的绿色上衣。《Vogue》的助理们将它们归为印花连衣裙的女孩子气服装一类，高端和低端时装界都开始追随它。
Why not? As engineered by the government, army green has mass appeal. Egalitarian in its origins and its effects, the color is in the key of the enlightened manners of the day. Not so much androgynous as unisex, it implies perfectly correct gender politics. The army jacket retains suggestions of smart readiness and swaggering utility. It seems to have been scrubbed clean of most other connotations.
为什么不呢？军绿色是经过政府精心调研的，它很受大众欢迎。这种颜色在起源和效果上都是平等主义的，集中体现了当今的开明态度。它不是雌雄同体，而是男女皆宜，蕴含着完全正确的性别政治。这种军装上衣仍代表着胸有成竹的潇洒和高视阔步的实用性。它似乎已排除了大多数其他涵义。
Wrapped around a hippie in 1968, army green blared a clear contradiction: The wearer was at sartorial war with the program of power. Worn to brunch in 2015, it still communicates a conflict, but there has been a paradigm shift. The person most likely to own a fur-trimmed Saint Laurent army coat is most unlikely to have a yellow ribbon tied around her oak tree.
1968年，嬉皮士裹着军绿色上衣，显示出明显的矛盾：穿着者正在与权力进行服装方面的斗争。2015年，你穿着军绿上衣去吃早午餐，也传达出一种矛盾，但是社会模式发生了变化。最可能拥有圣罗兰(Saint Laurent)毛边军装外衣的人最不可能在自家橡树上系着黄丝带。
The jacket, shifting symbolic shape, now belongs to a consumer culture that pays tribute to the chic of a uniform worn by veterans who are currently begging for change. Thoroughly disconnected from the military-industrial complex and the wearer’s place in it, the garment announces allegiance to only a broad conception of contemporary style. To wear an army green jacket while remaining innocent of the consequences of donning the genuine article for its dedicated purpose is the definition of luxury.
这种上衣的象征意义发生了变化，现在它属于一种消费文化，它向退伍老兵制服的风尚致敬，而退伍军人目前正渴望有所改变。这种服装与军事产业的复杂以及穿着者在其中的位置毫无关系，它只是忠于当代时尚的宽泛观念。身穿军绿上衣，同时对穿着真正制服去执行专门使命的后果完全不了解——这正是奢侈的定义。
In John Knowles’s prep-school novel “A Separate Peace,” set during World War II, his narrator describes olive drab as the “prevailing color of life in America. That color is always respectable and always important. Most other colors risk being unpatriotic.” Does army green inspire any sense of national pride in 2015? Even as it has come to epitomize a certain kind of urbane civilian cool, green field jackets have given way to camouflage prints in the U.S. Army, and the top brass decided to retire the green service uniform as well. The phaseout was completed last year. Dress blues are the new green.
约翰·诺尔斯(John Knowles)的预科学校小说《另一种和平》(A Separate Peace)以“二战”为背景，叙述者将橄榄绿土褐色描述为“美国生活最普遍的颜色。那种颜色总是受人尊敬，非常重要。大部分其他颜色都可能被认为是不爱国”。2015年，军绿色也激起某种国家自豪感吗？尽管它已成为某种城市平民时尚的酷风尚，但是军绿野战服已让位给美国军队的迷彩印花，军队高层也已决定淘汰绿色军服。淘汰过程已于去年完成。深蓝是新的绿色。