Leggings make me feel dead inside.

Yet I still have exactly 8 pairs.

IMG_4957It’s true – even the sequins don’t make them better.

As I sit back and ruminate on where I went wrong in life, I must surmise that I fell into this slippery slope because of running. Running leggings are amazing. Compressing in all the right spots and freeing in the rest. They are so fantastic that they make all other waistbands feel downright oppressive, and I never feel less jiggly and as if I actually have a firm body than when I’m wearing running leggings. This, along with the fashion world changing to a leggings-based environment, created this heinous situation in my life. This vacuous space in my fashion story. This embarrassment to myself, and one day when they look back on pictures, this embarrassment to my children.

But leggings leggings are not running leggings. Maybe some are, but none of the brands I’ve tried out compare. They compress my lumps and bumps with the efficiency of a stretched out two-sizes-too-big pair of non-control-top pantyhose. And when I pull them up over my twice-c-sectioned belly, I immediately feel like all my everything is put on display, and I look like the identical twin sister to a bag of Idaho potatoes. When I turn around and see the sheer length of my backside – from waist to upper knee – I shudder with horror and feel like I’ve turned away from everything I believe in.

I quickly pull on an oversized, long, solid colored, shapeless top. And sigh.

How did I find myself here?

What happened to my bold prints and the snappiest of denim? What happened to structure and slimming lines and flattering stitching?

I peek in my closet where many of those things still exist, albeit with dust perched atop the hangers.

But oh, the effort. Compared to my up-and-done leggings and boring flowy tops, the waistbands and belts and camisoles and buttons feel. So. Exhausting.

Then I moan with horror.

Is this what it means to let go of myself?

To forget what it’s like to care about fashion?

HAVE I GIVEN UP MY IDENTITY??

Then I look around and see women everywhere, young and old, having reproduced and not, doing the same thing.

And I let a relieved breath go.

It’s not just me.

Maybe this year’s fashion is the fault of the cesspool of bubbling pus that was 2016 for America. The national situation was such that it left us no energy for zippers and spanx.

It’s not the first time this has happened, after all. There were the giant sweaters and stirrups* in the early 90s (I had a light brown baby poo colored sweater that could’ve comfortably fit my dad. I wore it everywhere, proudly.)

*confession: I miss stirrups. That band on the bottom of my foot felt downright pleasurable. But I shudder to think of their effect on my now belly.

So, fashion is obviously cyclical.

In a few years we’ll all be back to structured shirts (that haven’t had their shoulders mysteriously removed), bootcut jeans (shaped ever so slightly different and given some new clever name like ‘gram jeans or something), and maybe even heels.

So I say we go ahead and usher in the next fashion cycle.

Rebel.

Throw away those leggings (stop! no! Not the running ones! Just the soul-sucking ones.), pull out our lonely denim, suck ourselves into those foreign and bizarrely restrictive waistbands, and

Bring.

Fashion.

Back.

In just a few minutes.

Because these leggings are so comfortable…..

11 thoughts on “Death By Leggings.

  1. My favorite leggings of all time are the Salar ones from Fabletics. I have long and cropped versions. Pretty much all of them are black, with a few other boring colors slipped in there because they were on sale. They compress, they make your butt look good, they’re comfortable…all the things you need in a pair of leggings. Alas, they no longer comfortably fit over my baby bump, so I have resigned myself to the 2 pairs of maternity jeans I found that I liked (unfortunately, I discovered I have just as many requirements in maternity pants as I do in leggings). I have younger sisters eyeballing my collection of leggings, and I’ve told them to back off!

  2. “You are not alone……” (a sung by Michael Jackson.)

    I have 6 pairs of leggings that I rotate for my morning Fit Body Bootcamp classes. I too love the compression and tightness of my work out leggings.

    I have a closet full of work clothes. Dress pants, pencil skirts, pretty blouses and fitted shirts that I have only worn roughly 25 days total in the last year. My job as a Training Specialists allows me to do most of my work from home which means leggings, sweatpants and sweatshirts have become my new normal..

    I have a couple of business trips in my near future, including one to Montreal, QC- probably one of Canada’s most fashion forward cities, and with promise of Spring and warmer weather, maybe these trips will give me the kick I need to turn things around fashion wise. :o)

  3. I hated stirrups. My mom would dress me in stirrup leggings with a leotard on top. You know, the kind of leotard that has snaps at the crotch. Please note that this was in kindergarden. I wasn’t ready for this kind of advanced clothing technology. Snaps are hard. In more ways than one. So perhaps it’s the floral printed snap-crotched leotards that is my true childhood trauma, but they are highly associated with the stirrups for me.

  4. I refused to start leggings because I really don’t need anyone else pondering the shape of my behind even before it expanded and shrunk four times with the births of my lovely progeny. My lazy go-to is the maxi skirt/dress. If I pair it with a decent top, I look fine, but I’m free of jeans that I end up buying at old lady stores because I can’t stand the constant war of pulling up my jeans so my underwear don’t show or worse.

  5. I’m a LuLaRoe leggings addict…I admit it. I don’t think I look all that great in leggings or denim but I’d much prefer leggings over denim!

  6. This is so funny because I was literally explaining stirrup pants and fashion cycles to my kids yesterday! I was telling themselves all about my baggy sweaters and “stretch” pants that are identical to their “leggings”. Too funny. Is the moral to save all our clothes because because they’ll be popular again in 10-20 years??

  7. I love leggings but I can’t bring myself to branch out from my black pointe leggings from Loft. They are certainly the thick slimming kind. So I guess I am not really a legging addict. I am a preschool special ed teacher and I travel to different preschools to see my students. I see a lot of LulaRoe on Moms, preschool teachers, and little girls and one random little boy. At Valentines day I saw way too much then I wanted to see on a few preschool teachers in Valentine themed leggings. I do want to add that on many of those buttery LulaRoe leggings, you can see underwear through the leggings, so cover that part!

  8. I don’t get why the people who work from home would wear leggings. If I could get away with it, I’d eschew pants altogether.

    My sister is totally into leggings and linked me to a site where she had just bought a couple more for yoga. On that site I found dairy cow print. As a nursing mom, I need those. I need them intensely! It will amuse me way more than it should to do yoga in cow print.

  9. Leggings are awesome, so are joggers, both high waisted of course. Try Lulu Lemon, wunder under high rise. You will love them. Very easy to make a cute outfit. But then, I am perfectly happy with the political situation of 2016, except for the divisions in the country. So I have energy to put into fashion. I agree that leggings need to be tested carefully to make sure they are not thin. Very carefully. And I would avoid sequins. It could hurt to sit down.

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