openpolitics.com

Whatever happened to sweatpants?

Remember sweatpants? Women used to wear them, not so long ago.

.. No one looks good in sweatpants. But that’s not the point. They’re basically just towels with waistbands. They exist for two activities: lounging and exercising — two activities that you used to be able to do without looking like a model in a P90X infomercial.

.. But yoga pants make it worse. Seriously, you can’t go into a room of 15 fellow women contorting themselves into ridiculous positions at 7 in the morning without first donning skintight pants? What is it about yoga in particular that seems to require this? Are practitioners really worried that a normal-width pant leg is going to throttle them mid-lotus pose?

We aren’t wearing these workout clothes because they’re cooler or more comfortable. (You think the selling point of Lululemon’s Reveal Tight Precision pants is really the way their moth-eaten design provides a “much-needed dose of airflow”?) We’re wearing them because they’re sexy.

.. We felt we had to look hot on dates — a given. We felt we had to look hot at the office — problematic. But now we’ve internalized the idea that we have to look hot at the gym? Give me a break. The gym is one of the few places where we’re supposed to be able to focus on how our bodies feel, not just on how they look. We need to remember that. Sweatpants can help.

Control-top exercise leggings that hold in your stomach won’t help. Nor will — and this is a real thing — the push-up sports bra.

.. All of this turns working out from a healthy thing you might do twice a week into a Way of Life, where $120 leggings are more necessity than extravagance. Consider the way that these fancy exercise clothes have spread from the gym to the street, essentially outfitting women for every activity beyond white-collar work.

.. Women can, of course, be fit and liberated. We may be able to conquer the world wearing spandex. But wouldn’t it be easier to do so in pants that don’t threaten to show every dimple and roll in every woman over 30?

.. Pantsuits had a moment, back in 2016. I think women are ready to give them another chance. And while we’re at it, let’s bring back slacks, too, and corduroys and, why not, even khakis. But the first step is to bring back sweatpants.

Deep-sea divers need skintight polymer pants; so do Olympic speedskaters. The rest of us could use some breathing room. So step into some slouchy pants with me. We don’t have to look quite so good when we’re just trying to look a little better.