Dear Friend,
You're the sluttiest girl at school, you're the toast of the year below me, you're the girl who sits opposite me on the bus, you're the secret virgin, you're the big-and-proud-of-it girl, you're the gym freak-ette who's bum looks like two oranges wrestling in a sock, you're the rich girl with no fashion sense and the trend whore with the air-freight Vogue tucked under one arm. You are every girl. Well, every girl that wears leggings as pants, anyway.
It seems to me that you have not grasped the concept of pants yet. Oh I know! It's so in right now, so chic, so fashionable, everyone's wearing them- STOP! No, No, No, NO! Period.
Leggings are not pants, and they never will be. Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Beatrice, your friendly neighborhood watchdog.
Okay, a little dramatic but no, it's not okay. Whether you are a 6, 16 or 26 leggings as pants (no matter how svelte you legs or how cool the leggings are) are not OK.
They look silly. Silly and sheep-like and cheap. There are billions of cool legging designs out there are yes, Agy does look smashing in them but wearing leggings as pants with any sort of very short dress or top and they look on par with wearing pajamas out of the house. Granted, on days when you have one class, wearing pajamas to school does seem tempting, but in the end, it just looks odd. Odd, showy, silly and really quite lazy. There are girls at my college that wear nothing but leggings as pants. Every. Day.
While some leggings are very cool, edgy and on-trend (see below) and I have many a time been tempted to buy a pair of leggings and wear them as pants, it only took me a second to remember, I can afford actual pants.
Sometimes I want to run up to these girls, embrace them and whisper in their ears "It's okay, we all feel lost sometimes" with a tear running down my cheek, before subtly slipping them a twenty with 'For the Pants Fund' note attached. Maybe it's a goal we can all work together to achieve.
On another note, since leggings worn with suitable overclothes can be hideously cool, here are some of my faves:
A: 
B: 
B: 
C: 
D:
D:
A + B: AMERICAN APPAREL
C + D: TOPSHOP
Ps: I suppose some people are wondering why I haven't mentioned jeggings, the infamous leggings with tacky faux denim printed on them and pockets sewn to the back. Answer: they don't deserve a mention. They deserve to go to the fashion mistake cemetery and lie in shame forever with the likes of balloon MC Hammer pants and Boy George hair.
Beatrice
Absolutely fantastic!
ReplyDeleteI applaud you.
I think it's immensely judgemental of you to draw conclusions on a woman's personality simply from an item of her clothing. Your dislike of leggings is drawn from your distaste for the stereotype who commonly wear them, but you cannot claim that any woman who dons a certain item of clothing is automatically an "airhead" or a "slut". Why is it that women today are still compelled to label, insult, and compete against each other, even after the feminist movement? You could wear whatever you wanted and you would still be your own intelligent, thoughtful woman, no? Your clothing would not effect that in the slightest, and yet people would still make judgment on who you are as a person without ever having met you. I find that incredibly saddening. A woman's morals and intelligence should not and cannot be surmised simply from the way she looks, and to do so is an insult to your own sex.
ReplyDeleteIn answer to the above comment I must direct your attention to the first paragraph of the faux letter. Within, I cite a broad range of stereotypes with the intent to draw the attention away from the woman wearing them and to the garment themselves implying that you can be any type of person and still make this fashion mistake.
ReplyDeleteThe whole point of the post was to illustrate my personal opinion of leggings as pants, and not the women who wear them. At no point in the above post do I describe all women who wear leggings as pants as 'airheads' or 'sluts'. Besides, this blog deals not with feminism or philosophy but fashion.