绿色的Santa很愚蠢......吗？

The centerpiece of Nast’s 1866 double-page, 20-vignette cartoon depicting Santa’s Workshop featured the elfin, fur-suited Santa standing on a chair to reach the stockings hung on the mantle. 

纳斯特在 1866 年创作的一幅双页、含 20 个小插图的漫画中，其核心画面描绘的是圣诞老人的工作室，画面突出展示了身着毛皮衣服的小精灵般的圣诞老人，他正站在椅子上，伸手去够挂在壁炉台上的长筒袜。

图源网络

Although Santa Claus’ uniform may have some variations, like The Plastics’ spaghetti-strap-dress versions in “Mean Girls,” his signature look is ingrained in pop culture.

尽管圣诞老人的装扮或许存在一些变体，比如《贱女孩》中 “塑料姐妹花” 的细肩带裙装，但他的标志性形象早已深植于流行文化和大众想象之中。

电影《贱女孩》中 塑料姐妹花版本的细肩带裙装,图源网络

但事实上，圣诞老人穿着、外貌和身高历经近一个世纪，才演变成如今我们所熟知的标志性形象。

His predecessors include the early Christian bishop St. Nicholas and his Dutch equivalent Sinterklaas; the hooded French patriarch Père Noël; and the German gift-bestowing baby Jesus, Christkindl, among many others. But the Americanized Santa first began taking shape in the 1820s and kept evolving through poetry, editorial illustrations and advertisements.

他的前身包括早期基督教主教圣尼古拉斯，以及荷兰版本的圣尼古拉（Sinterklaas）；头戴兜帽的法国圣诞老人（Père Noël）；还有德国送礼物的圣婴耶稣（Christkindl）等。而美国化的圣诞老人形象在 19 世纪 20 年代初开始初具雏形，并通过诗歌、社论插图和广告不断演变。

 “The 19th century was the time in which the arguments about what Santa looked like and what he wore were quite prominent,” said historian Gerry Bowler, author of “Santa Claus: A Biography,” in a phone interview. “It took about 80 years for American artists to settle on Santa’s outfit. Up to that time you could have put them in any color, in all kinds of robes and variations of it.”

《圣诞老人传》的作者、历史学家格里・鲍勒在一次电话采访中表示：“19 世纪，关于圣诞老人长什么样、穿什么的争论非常激烈。美国艺术家们花了大约 80 年才确定圣诞老人的着装。在此之前，你可以让他身着任何颜色、各种款式的长袍及变体。”

罗伯特·沃尔特·韦尔于1837年创作的圣诞老人油画，将圣诞老人描绘成了一个没有胡须、身披斗篷的货郎。（该作品收藏于）史密森美国艺术博物馆。图源网络

 Santa's dress codes shifted for decades, as did his facial hair and companions — as seen in this editorial illustration depicting turkeys in place of reindeers. Corbis/Getty Images

 几十年来，圣诞老人的着装规范发生了变化，他的面部毛发和伙伴也发生了变化——正如这幅社论插图所示，图中的火鸡取代了驯鹿。

Santa’s key features — a bearded, fur-wearing man pulled by reindeers on a sleigh — became canon thanks to the American writer Clement Clarke Moore poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” in 1823.

圣诞老人的标志性形象 —— 留着胡须、身着皮毛，由驯鹿拉着雪橇出行的男子 —— 之所以成为经典定式，得益于美国作家克莱门特・克拉克・摩尔在 1823 年创作的诗歌《圣尼古拉斯来访》。

Some early interpretations of Moore’s A Visit from St. Nicholas show the jolly holiday intruder as a small and sly elfish peddler of goods who could more believably fit inside a chimney: An 1864 illustrated version of the poem dresses St. Nicholas, who traditionally wears Bishop garments, in a yellow suit and fur cap, as well as an oil painting in 1837, which shows him in a fur-lined red cape. 

早期对摩尔的诗歌《圣尼古拉斯来访》的一些解读，将这位欢乐的节日闯入者描绘成一个身材矮小、狡黠如精灵的货物小贩，这样的形象对他能钻进烟囱这个说法来说更为可信：1864 年该诗的一个插图版本中，一贯身着主教服饰的圣尼古拉斯，被画成穿着黄色套装、头戴皮帽的样子；1837 年的一幅油画里，他则穿着带毛衬里的红色披风。

But others played loose with his look: Phineas Taylor Barnu，an American circus broker and performer ,his advertisement from 1850 promoting the singer Jenny Lind shows him as a beardless Revolutionary War-era figure, while a 1902 cover for the famous American writer Lyman Frank Baum’s “The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus” puts him in a dark frock with animal print fur trim and flamboyant red boots.

但也有其他作品对其形象的刻画较为随意：1850 年，美国马戏团经纪人兼演出者P.T. 巴纳姆为宣传歌手珍妮・林德所做的广告中，把他描绘成一个没有胡须的独立战争时期的人物；而 1902 年美国著名作家莱曼·弗兰克・鲍姆的《圣诞老人的生活与冒险》一书的封面，将他画成身着带动物皮毛装饰的深色长袍，脚蹬鲜艳红靴的形象。

《圣诞老人的生活与冒险》的封面，图源网络

《哈珀周刊》的漫画家托马斯・纳斯特在塑造美国圣诞老人形象的过程中发挥了重要作用。1863 年内战期间，他首次绘制了圣诞老人，他身着星条旗图案的服装，正在给联邦军队的士兵分发礼物。但据史密森尼学会称，这位艺术家在 1881 年创作的一个形象最为经久不衰：圣诞老人身着带扣的红色套装，与如今的形象几乎毫无二致。

托马斯・纳斯特（Thomas Nast）创作的《快乐的老圣诞老人》

随后，艺术家诺曼・洛克威尔和 J.C. 莱因德克在 20 世纪初经常为《星期六晚邮报》绘制圣诞老人形象，画中的圣诞老人身着如今已成为标志性的套装，形象健康正面。

Many people may think Coca Cola invented Santa wearing red, but that is not the case...After all, Coca-Cola only began its Christmas ads in 1920 and painted its first Santa Claus in 1930.

也许很多人认为可口可乐发明了穿红色衣服的圣诞老人，但事实并非如此。毕竟可口可乐公司1920 年代才开始开始其圣诞广告，1930 年才画了第一个圣诞老人。

可口可乐的节日广告已成为圣诞老人现代形象的代名词，且常被误认为是奠定圣诞老人形象的源头。图源网络

Santa’s earliest visionaries may not have picked out his red suit, but they did intend him to be a creature of nostalgia, according to the historian and author Stephen Nissenbaum. In his seminal 1988 book “The Battle for Christmas,” Nissenbaum charts the history of his character and challenged his oft-repeated origins as a natural import of the Netherlands’ St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas.

历史学家兼作家斯蒂芬・尼森鲍姆认为，最早构想圣诞老人形象的人或许并没有选定他的红色套装，但他们确实希望他成为一个能唤起怀旧之情的角色。在尼森鲍姆 1988 年的开创性著作《圣诞节的争夺战》中，他梳理了圣诞老人这一角色的历史，挑战了一种普遍的起源说法,即圣诞老人是荷兰的圣尼古拉斯（Sinterklaas）自然传入的。

Instead, Nissenbaum points to a coterie of “antiquarian-minded New York gentleman” — to which Moore, the New York Historical Society founder John Pintard, and the writer Washington Irving belonged — who intentionally refashioned the Dutch figure in the 1820s as the symbol of a more family-friendlyholiday amid rising poverty and crime.

相反，尼森鲍姆指出，19 世纪 20 年代的美国正值贫困和犯罪率上升时期，一群 “具有古物研究癖好的纽约绅士”，包括摩尔、纽约历史学会创始人约翰・平塔德，以及作家华盛顿・欧文等人， 有意将这位荷兰人物重塑为一个更适合家庭庆祝的节日象征。

By Moore’s time, he explains, Christmas was not celebrated in any one unified way. Puritans had tried to quell it, while Evangelicals worked to convert it into a strictly pious occasion on December 25. Others still relished in the long tradition of mischief, leading to noisy, roving holiday street gangs.

他解释说，直到摩尔所处的时代，圣诞节并没有统一的庆祝方式。清教徒试图压制它，而福音派则努力将其转变为 12 月 25 日严格虔诚的节日。还有一些人仍然热衷于延续长期以来的恶作剧传统，节日期间街头帮派游荡，到处喧闹。

“Not one of these ways of celebrating Christmas bore much resemblance to the holiday that most of us know today… In none of them would we have found the familiar intimate gathering or the giving of Christmas presents to expectant children. Nowhere would we have found Christmas trees; no reindeer, no Santa Claus,” Nissenbaum writes.

尼森鲍姆写道：“这些庆祝圣诞节的方式，没有一种与我们如今熟知的节日有太多相似之处…… 在这些方式中，我们都找不到如今熟悉的亲密家庭聚会，也没有给满怀期待的孩子们送圣诞礼物的环节。我们也看不到圣诞树；没有驯鹿，也没有圣诞老人。”

In this new version of Christmas, children — who, until around this time, were treated more like needy little adults — became the objects of generosity, absolving the well-to-do of the expectation to serve the poor. And Moore’s vision of St. Nicholas, who Nissenbaum argues was given a secular, working class makeover, neutralized the home invader into a visitor who makes no demands, but instead offers gifts.

在这个新版本的圣诞节中，直到这个时期前后，还被当作有需求的小大人对待的孩子们，成为了慷慨给予的对象，免除了富人款待穷人的期望。尼森鲍姆认为，摩尔构想的圣尼古拉斯，经过了世俗化、工人阶级化的改造，将原本的不速之客形象转变为一位不索取、只送礼物的访客。

随着他着装的演变，圣诞老人的精灵特质也逐渐褪去，变成了一个身材更高大、和蔼可亲、纯粹善良的客人。

Tracing Santa’s exact style influences can get murky, since he has so many analogs in different parts of the world, some of whom have simply combined into this singular Westernized image. 

要追溯圣诞老人确切的风格影响因素可能有些模糊，因为他在世界不同地区有很多类似形象，其中一些形象融合成了这一单一的西方化形象。

With such a varied fashion history, Santa’s closet used to be much bigger. Perhaps there’s room in the future to expand it once again.

鉴于圣诞老人有着如此多样的时尚演变史，他的 “衣橱” 曾经丰富得多，也许未来仍有空间再次扩充。

原文链接：

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/22/style/santa-red-white-outfit-dress-codes/index.html

https://santaclausandchristmas.com/did-santa-claus-used-to-be-green/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Clarke_Moore#A_Visit_from_St._Nicholas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_suit

https://sources.u3a.org.uk/why-does-santa-wear-red

https://nypost.com/2024/12/09/lifestyle/bloomingdales-green-santa-has-parents-angry-kids/

编译 | 艾妮古丽

排版 | 艾妮古丽

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