For my high school newspaper, I wrote an opinion piece titled, “Leggings as pants: why?”
I was absolutely harsh. I said those who wore leggings as pants were an “assault to the eyes” and “’80s aerobic instructors.”
After the article came out, people laughed, although one girl said I was going to get “beat” for my blatant aversion to leggings.
My vitriol-filled history with the aforementioned piece of clothing started in high school, when leggings were the rage, and the trifecta of low-priced teenage megalomaniac clothing chains ““ Forever 21, Wet Seal and American Apparel ““ sold leggings by the pound like spicy buffalo wings. The hallways of my school were inundated by leggings of every style, from lace to neon, and most of them unfortunately sheer and utterly misused and abused as pants.
When I came from Northern California to UCLA, I expected a fashion culture shock, exacerbated by my delusions of L.A. fashion stereotypes: velour tracksuits tucked into Uggs and bleach blond extensions. I encountered some of that, and other L.A. mainstays, but I was confronted by a larger conundrum that I still could never solve: people wearing leggings as pants, and the recent movement toward leggings masquerading as jeans, known as jeggings.
UCLA was literally leggings central. From the Wooden Center-obsessed to random passersby on Bruin Walk, leggings as pants was the norm. I thought California was supposed to be the land of “Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top,” as Katy Perry goes on ad nauseum in her song, “California Gurls.” We aren’t supposed to be the land of leggings-induced frontal wedgies with a buttock-skimming shirt on top.
I understand, leggings as pants are the perfect solution for the zipper-challenged and yogalates enthusiasts. It is logical for marathon bicyclists and gymnasts to wear leggings for maximum stretching capability.
But wearing leggings as pants to make a style statement seriously asks the question “Why?” Both unforgiving to the portly of bellies and the thunderous of thighs, the leggings-as-pants trend is a causation of awkward bunching around the nether region and even more awkward glances.
It’s a free country, so no one can force leggings lovers to pull up the zipper on their regular pants for a change. But I believe the legging is the floozy sister to its fat slouch of a sibling, sweatpants.
If these items of clothing were the embodiment of real people, I would think that sweatpants tend to stay at home eating cheesy fries from De Neve Late Night while leggings are the sad tarts that give unnecessary flirty eyes to everyone.
Then, in a moment of retail genius, the evolution of the leggings took place, morphing into a jeans-leggings hybrid known simply as “jeggings.” Embraced by celebrities such as Jessica Alba, Rihanna and leggings-lover Lindsay Lohan, the jegging became the spray-on denim trend of 2010.
Both practical and disturbing, the jeggings were a marriage of sensibility and inanity, what with the whole look of having jeans fused to your skin like a rash or an extreme tattoo.
While fourth-year world arts and cultures student Nina Freitas said jeggings are doing too much with their disturbing fake pockets, I think they are the solution to the issue of leggings as pants.
By masking the laziness of the legging in the form of pseudo-pants, jeggings are a form of salvation for zipper-haters and those who believe in the mantra that tighter is better.
While I think leggings as pants should stay at home eating cheesy fries together with sweatpants, I know that won’t happen for the most confident of leggings-as-pants lovers. But for the sake of decency, at least wear a dress or a long shirt over it. No one wants to see one’s baby factory.
_If you think leggings as pants are the epitome of class, e-mail Jue at
tjue@media.ucla.edu._