Leggings are Not Pants...

New Trend Exposes More than Fashion Sense

You know when you look though your parents’ old pictures and you see them wearing something like belly-button-high cutoffs, platform shoes, denim jumpsuits and peach-colored bellbottoms, they get a little red in the face and say: “That was the style back then!” We laugh at them and smile and think about how the designers must have been blind. Now let me conjure up a similar image for you: OUR kids, looking through OUR pictures, laughing at the fashions we wore and how our hair looked… in the most embarrassing pictures of our generation, I imagine those of a woman, with those ever-trendy side swooping bangs, wearing the latest Ugg creation, some leggings and a hoodie.

   Now, could someone please tell me what the purpose is of wearing leggings as pants?! They are tight, they leave nothing to the imagination, and I don’t think that showing off every crinkle, bump, wad, or curve of skin is exactly what most of the women here want to see.

   Where did this look come from? I do understand that something similar to this was popular in the 1980s, but since then, we’ve invented Ipods, Facebook, waterproof mascara, rap music, and TeVo, American culture is obviously far more advanced than it was in the 80s, so why is our fashion reverting back to these dark, Lady Gaga-less days? The concept of “everything once old, is now new again” is not an invalid adage here, but usually when fashions resurface, something changes about them. Why did we unknowingly pick right back up where the 80s left off? And what spurs the motivation to wear them as pants at all? Is it laziness? Or is it confidence? Out of any given day, I take it upon myself with a few other vigilantes to count up the total number of people we see daily wearing this fashion trend, and the final numbers of people are increasing. This must be stopped.

   Now, there are appropriate times that one can wear leggings and not be considered a faux pas (or have potential to be called out in an article). And these situations would include while wearing skirts, dresses, under some ripped jeans, under dancing leotards, and any kind of shirt that hits you mid thigh (that means “halfway down your thigh,” not “just barely covering your butt”).

   I know what you’re thinking: is she talking about me? Am I an offender? Have I been a part of her daily polls, counted as a number to her and her legging-hating friends? If you know you’re an offender, the answer is yes, you’ve probably been counted. If you’re unsure, you can check the following list to see if you are wearing pants, or leggings.

CHANCES ARE, YOU ARE WEARING LEGGINGS IF…

1.       You have no pockets.

2.       Your “pants” have lace on the bottom.

3.       You can see the outline of your underwear.

4.       When you pull out the band, you have a seam imprinted into your flesh.

5.       If you can put a quarter up the ankle of the “pants” and still see the coin’s outline. And George Washington’s face. In detail. As well as the year the coin was minted.

6.       If you ever feel like a sausage.

7.       If you could tear a hole in your “pants” with the edge of a sheet of paper.

8.       You worry about your “pants” coming escaping from your Uggs and crawling up your leg.

9.       If your socks are thicker than your “pants.”

10.   If you tuck your “pants” into your socks.

   Help spread the word about leggings, think of how our children will make fun of us