Shorts may feel nice and breezy on your legs on a warm summer’s day, but they’re not so gentle on your wallet. In general, a pair of shorts isn’t any cheaper than a pair of pants, despite one obviously using less fabric¹ than the other. So what gives?

在温暖的夏日，穿短裤感觉舒服又凉快，但是对你的钱包却不是那么友好。一般来说，一条短裤不会比长裤便宜到哪去，尽管用的布料明显更少。这是怎么回事呢？

It turns out clothing retailers² aren’t trying to rip you off; they’re just pricing shorts according to what it costs to produce them. Extra material does go into a full pair of pants but not as much as you may think. As Esquire explains, shorts that don’t fall past your knees may contain just a fifth less fabric than ankle-length trousers. This is because most of the cloth in these items is sewn into the top half.

事实上，服装零售商并不是要宰你，他们是根据生产成本来给短裤定价的。长裤确实要用掉比短裤更多的布料，但没有你想象的那么多。据《时尚先生》杂志解释，长度不超过膝盖的短裤所用的布料比长度到脚踝的长裤只少了五分之一。这是因为裤子的大多数布料都用在上半部分。

Those same details that end up accounting³ for most of the material—flies, pockets, belt loops, waist bands—also require the most human labor to make. This is where the true cost of a garment is determined⁴. The physical cotton in blue jeans accounts for just a small fraction of its price tag. Most of that money goes to pay the people stitching it together, and they put in roughly the same amount of time whether they’re working on a pair of boot cut jeans or some Daisy Dukes.

那些用去多数布料的细节——开口、口袋、裤绊、腰头——也需要花费最多人力。这里才是决定一件衣服真实成本的地方。蓝色牛仔裤所用的棉布成本只占价格标签上的一小部分。大多数钱都是用于支付那些缝纫工人的工钱，他们加工一条靴型牛仔裤和一条单宁小短裤所用的时间是差不多的。

This price trend crops up across the fashion spectrum⁵, but it’s most apparent in pants and shorts. For example, short-sleeved shirts cost roughly the same as long-sleeved shirts, but complicated stitching in shirt cuffs⁶ that you don’t see in pant legs can throw this dynamic off. There are also numerous invisible factors that make some shorts more expensive than nearly identical pairs, like where they were made, marketing⁷ costs, and the brand on the label. If that doesn’t make spending $40 on something that covers just a sliver⁸ of leg any easier to swallow, maybe check to see what you have in your closet before going on your next shopping spree.

这种价格趋势在时尚产业广泛存在，但是在短裤和长裤上表现得最明显。举例来说，短袖衬衫和长袖衬衫的价格大致相当，但你在衬衫袖口上能看到裤腿上看不到的复杂工艺，所以也就没有这种心理落差。还有很多隐性因素导致一些短裤比款式相近的其他短裤更贵，比如它们的产地、营销成本，还有标签上的品牌。如果这些因素都无法让你甘愿花40美元买一条短裤，也许你可以在下次血拼之前先看看你的衣柜里还有没有能穿的。